ON AN 



OVERLOOKEn l^nIÄ^ SWIFT 



BV 



ERNST HARTERT 



In 186') Blyth doscribod in the Ibis for tlie lirsl time 

 a Swilt, nnder the name of Cypselus acMiicaiida. Tiie ori- 

 ginal description is not a very good one, but two of the 

 principal characters aro meniioncd, i. e. the decp black 

 colour of the plumage and the much pointed lateral rec- 

 triccs. The majority of recent ornithologisls have either 

 passed this species over with silence, or placed Blyth's 

 name as a synonym among the litterature on the ^om\- 

 mon Swift (/l/yz^s «/JMi) or its eastern represenlative form 

 {^Apus apus pekinensis). Hume in bis once famous List of 

 Indian Birds placed Cypselus acuticauda as a separate 

 species, but the specimens in his collection labelled, and 

 mentioned inhis writings as Ihat speciesarc merely birds 

 of the year of Apus apus pekinensis. Probably this lattcr 

 fact has beenthe principal reason which led me to place 

 Blyth's name as a synonym of Apus apus pekinensis on 

 p. 44o of vol. XVI of the Catalogue of Birds in the British 

 Museum, but more recently, in 1897, on p. 80 of no. 1 of 

 the Tierreich^ I added a query. At about the samc time 

 I)"" Blanford in vol. lllof his series on Birds in his Fauna 

 of British India quoted acuticauda without a query as 

 a synonym of Ajnis apus. Doubtless D' Blanford and 1 

 overlookcd the sentence of Blyth saying that his type 

 was in Liverpool, or either ofus would most probably 

 have tried to see the type. 



