THREE UNPUBLISHED PAPERS BY BLYTH. 307 



way it entered. A slight touch with a switch brings it down 

 immediatel}', when it suffers itself to be handled without making 

 an effort to escape ; yet place it on the smoothest table, and it 

 rises with the utmost facility, springing high enough to gain the 

 action of its wings. Let the wings be tied, and it will then be 

 seen to be incapable of pi'ogressing by the feet on such a surface, 

 while it endeavours to relieve itself by repeated springs. The 

 flight of this species is very unlike that of the British Swift, 

 being less stead}', and performed with much action of the wings, 

 with intervals of sailing, though never smoothly along for any 

 distance. The voice is a sort of shivering scream, rather than a 

 twitter. 



We have never seen this bird from the eastern side of the Bay 

 of Bengal ; but Mr. Strickland notes it from Malacca — " Rather 

 larger and of a deeper black than Indian specimens, but I do not," 

 he adds, " venture to separate them. Wing 5^ in ; tail 2^ in." 

 (P. Z. S. 1848, p. 99). 



C. BALASiENSis, Gray, Griffith's An. Kingd. vii. 60 ; C j^:>aZ- 

 marum, Gray, Hardw. 111. Ind. Zool.* — A small species, with 

 rather deeplj' forked tail, and with the first primary considerably 

 shorter than the second, and attenuating to the tip. Length to 

 end of middle tail-feathers Sg- in., the outermost 1^ in. more ; 

 alar expanse lOf in. ; wing from bend 4|- in. Colour wholly of 

 an ash-brown, paler (somewhat albescent) below ; wings and tail 

 darker, and faintly green-glossed. Irides dark brown. 



" This little species," remarks Mr. Jerdon, '■ is common to all 

 the districts of India, except on the bare table-land, where it is 

 very rare. It frequents groves of palms, especially the Borassus 

 Jiabelliformis, and does not in general fly to any distance from 

 them. It is very abundant in the Carnatic." In Bengal it is also 

 common, but a rural and garden species, which does not come 

 much over towns, being generally found wherever a tall or isolated 



* Chi'imcliiki is the only native name which we have heard for tbis 

 species, and iox Hirundo sinensis ; but it properly refers to the Bats (ex- 

 clvisive of Pterojjus), and is doubtless applied to these birds from their 

 somewhat Bat-like mode of flight, unsteady and flickering. However, a 

 remarkable Bat-like analogy is observable in most Cypselidcs, in the roostin» 

 places which they resort to, whether in buildings, or the deep rock-caverns 

 of the CollocalicB, or the instance of many thousands of Acanthylis i^elasgia 

 retiring into a single hollow trunk. As for their time of activity, the Swifts 

 begin to retire to roost when the Bats begin to come forth after sunset. 



