200 ERNST HARTERT. 



When arranging the more recent additions to D'" Roth- 

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

 come across a Swift which I did not know at all ! I soon 

 began to read Blyth's description and as 1 found it to agree 

 with the Bird in hand I wrote to D"" Forbes, who most 

 readily sent me Blyth's type, which I find in every detail 

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

 at Cherrapunji in the Khasia Hills in India by captain 

 H.-J. Elwes, at an elevation of 4 500 feet above the sea, 

 on September 24*'' 1886, while the type was from Nepal. 

 The comparison of the two Birds shows clarly that 

 Apus acuticauda (Blyth) is a most distinct species, 

 which is probably spread over a considerable portion of 

 India. 



Its rectrices (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 under tail-coverts blue-black. The wings 

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

 specimens 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 Apus paci ficus than Apus apus, but the rump is 

 blue-black, not white ! 



[t is most extraordinary that noue of the numerous 

 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 [ndia, but more information is 

 required about it in any case. 



