ginous; centre of breast and abdomen white; under tail-coverts ashy brown washed with rufous 

 darker brown before the tips, which are whitish, all the feathers being broadly edged with the 

 latter colour; under wing-coverts and axillaries smoky brown, edged with rufous, more distinct 

 near the edge of the wing ; quills dusky brown below, more ashy along the inner web : " bill 

 black; feet dark grey; iris dark brown" (Gosse). Total length 4'8 inches, culmen 035, 

 wing 4'5, tail T75, tarsus 045. 



There appears to be no difference in the colours of the sexes, and the wing only varies from 

 4 - inches to 4T inches in length. 



The young bird is altogether duller in colour than the adult, and is browner on the head, with a whity- 

 brown forehead, with some chestnut plumes intermixed. The inner secondaries are edged with 

 rufous at the tips, and the chestnut feathers of the lower back and rump have ashy whitish 

 margins. The under surface of the body is like that of the adults, but the rufous of the throat 

 is rather paler. Wing 4'0 inches. 



Hub. Antilles, Cuba, Jamaica^ Poito Eico, and San Domingo. Yucatan and Panama in Central 

 America. 



Vieillot met with this species himself in San Domingo about the middle of May, and 

 states that Mauge also brought the same bird from Porto Eico, where it was observed 

 in spring. Vieillot came to the conclusion that it was only a bird of passage in the 

 above-mentioned islands from the fact of his observing it only at the same season for 

 two successive years, and be imagined that the species went to the north for breeding, 

 as a similar Swallow settled on the ship in which be was travelling about the latitude of 

 Halifax, in Nova Scotia. This would be of course P. pyrrhonota, as we know now that 

 P.fulva is strictly confined to a more southern habitat. Vieillot describes this Swallow 

 as congregating at night and roosting in the bouse in which be was staying. 



Mr. Cory states that the species " does not appear to be very abundant in San 

 Domingo ; only a \'ew flocks were seen and but two specimens taken. At Gonaives, on 

 the day of our arrival, several flocks were observed flying about the bouses, but the 

 next day none were to be seen." 



Mauge, as above recorded by Vieillot, w r as the first naturalist to observe it in Porto 

 Rico, and Messrs. Swift and Latimer sent specimens from that island to the Smithsonian 

 Institution. 



Professor Baird separated the Jamaican specimens from those of Cuba on account 

 of the smaller size and darker chestnut coloration. We have not found these differences 

 pronounced in the specimens in the British Museum, and regard the birds from both 

 islands as belonging to one and the same species. Mr. Gosse, wdio described the 

 Jamaican bird as Hirunclo pceciloma, has given the following account of its habits : — 



" The Cave-Swallow does not appear to be in any degree migratory in Jamaica, 

 being abundantly common at all seasons. It delights in the neighbourhood of caverns 

 and overhanging rocks, in the hollows of which it builds its ingenious nest. About a 

 mile from Bluefields, the sea washes a precipitous rock of no great height, on the summit 



