200 ERNST HARTERT. 



Whon arranging thc more rccent additions to D'' Roth- 

 schild's Museum in Tring, I was not a little surprised to 

 come across a Swift wliicli I did not know atall ! I soon 

 begantoread Blytii's description and as I founditto agree 

 wiLh the Bird in band I wrote to D"" Forbes, wbo most 

 readily sent nie Blytb's type, wbich I fmd in every detail 

 to agree with the Bird in question. The latter bas ben shot 

 at Cherrapunji in the Khasia Hills in India by captain 

 H.-J. Elwes, at an elevation of 4500 feet above the sea, 

 on September 24"" 1886, white the type was from Nepal. 

 The comparison of the two Birds shows clarly that 

 Apus acuticauda (Blytb) is a most distinct species, 

 which is probably spread over a considerable portion of 

 India. 



Its rcctrices (specially the outermost pair) are much 

 more pointed than in Apus apus and its subspecies. The 

 colour of the upperside is not at all brownish black, but 

 deep steel-blue or bluish black. The throat is white with 

 blackish shaft-lines ; the rest of the underside from the 

 foreneck to the belly is black with wide white borders to 

 the feathers, the iinder tail-coverts blue-black. Thewings 

 are longer than in the subspecies oi Apus apus, but in the 

 speeimens examined they are moulting, and quite exact 

 measurements can therefore not be given. On the under- 

 side Apus acuticauda resembles much more the well- 

 known Aptis pacificus than Apus apus, but the rump is 

 blue-black, not white ! 



It is most extraordinary that none of the numcrous 

 energetic collectors of Mr. Alan 0. Hume, nor others, 

 have come across this swift, and it is, I think, possible, 

 that its breeding grounds are in the north, and that it is 

 only a winter visitor to India, but more inforniation is 

 required about it in any case. 



