^"iSgs'^] RiiHMONi), riir Cayonic Svjift. 



THE CAYENNE SWIFT, PANYPTILA CAYENNENSIS 



(GMELIN). 



BY CHARLES W. RICHM(3ND. 

 Plate I. 



This elegant little Swift, although described and figured over 

 a century ago, and ranging over a large portion of tropical Amer- 

 ica, has always been a scarce bird in collections, while its habits 

 and manner of nesting are as yet very imperfectly known. It was 

 introduced to naturalists as the Afa7-tinet h collier^ de Cayenne'^ by 

 Buffon, who gave a recognizable colored figure of it, and Gmelin 

 in 1788 gave it the name Hirtmdo cayennensis. 



This species, which is the type of the genus Patiyptila^ ranges 

 from Nicaragua to southeastern Brazil, and from the fact that it 

 has only recently been found to occur in Central America, north 

 of Panama, it is to be expected that future observations will con- 

 siderably extend the range. The only other species of the genus 

 is the remarkable P. sancti-hieronymi^ confined, as far as known, 

 to certain mountains of Guatemala. It is very much larger than 

 the first-named species, but of precisely the same coloration. It, 

 also, is very rare in collections, much more so, in fact, than the 

 Cayenne Swift, due to its inaccessible habitat, and to the meteor- 

 like flight, which renders its collection a matter of extreme 

 difficulty. 



References to the Cayenne Swift are few and far between in 

 ornithological literature, and information respecting its life history 

 is very meagre indeed. Messrs. Salvin and Godman in review- 

 ing the species recently in their great work on Central American 

 birds,'^ wrote : " We have no specimen from our countr}-, but 

 Salvin was shown by Mr. Lawrence in 1874 a specimen with its 

 nest which was found near the Chagres River by Dr. T. K. 

 Merritt, the discoverer of Microchera a/bocoronata. ^^'riting in 

 1884, Mr. Lawrence says that the bird was captured in its nest, 



* Planch. Enlum., pi. 725, fig. 2. 

 -Biol. Cent. Am., Aves, II, p. 371. 



