with pale sienna ; under tail-coverts white, with very distinct shaft-stripes : " bill black ; feet 

 dark brown; iris brown" [Shelley). Total length 7"8 iuches, culmen 0'35j wing 5"lj tail 4.'lj 

 tarsus 0"6. 



The adult female resembles the male in colour, but is a trifle smaller, and less richly coloured on the 

 head and rump. Total length G"5 inches, culmcn 0'35, wing 4"85, tail 3'7, tarsus 0'6. 



The females and young birds are paler underneath, and there is less of the fulvous tinge which is seen 

 in the old males. 



Young. Head dark brownish sienna, very pale on the sides of the neck, the base of the feathers con- 

 spicuously showing, so that a quantity of blue-black diamond-shaped marks appear on the head ; 

 back and scapulars steel-blue, with the white edgings to the feathers showing conspicuously on 

 the upper part of the back; wing-coverts blackish brown, edged at the tip with pale sienna; 

 quills blackish brown, glossed with deep greenish steel-blue, the secondaries tipped with pale 

 sienna; rump pale sienna, the white edging to the rump not very distinct, the shafts of all the 

 feathers clearly defined ; the blue upper tail-coverts edged with sienna; tail blackish brown, 

 glossed above with deep greenish steel-blue, the outer feathers not very long, but having the white 

 spot on the inner web very large, as in the adult, decreasing in size as it approaches the two 

 centre feathers, which are unspotted ; under surface of the body white tinged with fulvous, deepest 

 on the flanks and abdomen ; the shafts of the feathers very broad and plain, but thicker and not 

 giving such a striped appearance in the adult ; bill dark brown ; legs flesh-colour. 



Hab. South Africa, throughout the Cape Colony to Natal, the Transvaal, and Matabele Land. On the 

 western side of the continent in Damara Land and Mossamedes. 



This fine Swallow, as far as we yet know, is peculiar to the South- African region, and is 

 easily distinguished from all the other rufous-rumped species of the genus Sirundo by 

 its rafous head. The only other species which exhibits this character is H. -puella, a 

 much smaller bird with very broad streaks on the under surface. It appears to visit the 

 Cape Colony from August till May, but where it goes to during the other months of the 

 year has not been discovered. 



Mr. E. L. Layard says that it arrives in the western part of the Cape Colony about 

 the end of August or tlie beginning of September, but is somewhat irregular as regards 

 its advent. Thus, in 1868 he observed the first at Uitkek, near Cape Town, on the 29th 

 of August, but in the succeeding year the first bird was noticed by him at Green Point, 

 near Cape Town, on the 19th of September, and Mr. Atmore saw it at George for the 

 first time on the previous day. Victorin records it from the Knysna district as occurring 

 from September to March, and he believes that it remains there till April. The late 

 Dr. Bradshaw informed us that it was scarce along the Orange E,iver, but plentiful 

 further south in the Colony ; he found it nesting at Renhardt, a village seventy miles 

 south of the Orange River. 



The dislike entertained by the inhabitants of South Africa to the slaughter of this 

 bird doubtless accounts for its rarity in collections at home, and the only specimen we 

 have seen from the eastern districts of the Cape Colony is one in the British Museum, 



