DENDBOCHELIDON CORONATUS. 



(THE INDIAN CRESTED SWIFT.) 



Hirundo eoronatus, Tickell, J. A. S. ii. p. 580, xv. p. 21 (1833). 



Macropteryx eoronatus, Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. p. 87 (1849); Kelaart, Prodromus, 



Cat. p. 117 (1852); Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1853, xii. p. 167. 

 M r acropteryx Ivngipennis (Swainson), Jerdon, Cat. B. S. India, Madr. Journ. 1840, xi. p. 236. 

 Dendrochelidon sehistieolor, Bonap. Consp. Av. i. p. 66 (1850). 

 Dendrochelidon eoronatus, Gould, B. of Asia, pt. xi. (1859); Jerdon, B. of Ind. i. p. 185 



(1862); Holdsworth, P. Z. S. 1S72, p. 420; Hume, Nests and Eggs, i. p. 92 (1873); 



Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 13; Ball, Str. Featk. 1874, p. 384; Oates, Str. Feath. 1875, 



p. 45 ; Fairbank, ibid. 1877, p. 393. 



Adult male and female. Length 9-3 to 9 - 75 inches; wing 6*1 to 6'3 ; tail 5 - 3 to 5-7 (outer feathers 3 - 25 to 3 - 6 



longer than the middle) ; tarsus 0'35 : middle toe and claw 0-65 ; bill to gape 075. Female slightly the larger. 

 Iris deep brown ; bill black, inside of mouth slate ; legs and feet vinous-brown, claws blackish. 

 Eye very large for the size of the bird. Coronal feathers elongated and capable of being erected. 



Adult mali'. Head, back and sides of neck, back, scapulars, and rump bluish ashy, palest on the back, and with a 

 greenish gloss on the head and upper tail-coverts, continued in some birds to the back ; wing-coverts deep though 

 obscure lustrous green ; quills and tail obscure metallic green, with a steel-bluish lustre about the tips of the 

 shorter primaries ; terminal portions of the tertials greyish. 



Lores black, surmounted by a thin white supercilium ; a blackish orbital circle; chin, cheeks, and ear-coverts glossy 

 chestnut, palest on the chin ; throat and chest ashy, blending into the deeper hue of the sides of the neck and 

 passing down the flanks, the lower parts of which are concolorous with the rump ; lower breast, abdomen, and 

 under tail-coverts white, blending into the surrounding grey hue ; under wing-coverts dusky bluish ashv. 



Female. Wants the rufous chin and cheeks of the male, the face and behind the eye being black, as are the lores; 

 beneath the cheeks a whitish line; chin concolorous with the throat; white of the lower parts less pure than in 

 the male ; under tail-coverts with dark shafts. 



Young. On leaving the nest the nestling has the head, back, and rump fulvescent greyish, the feathers rounded at 

 the tips and with silky white edges and the basal portions metallic green; the lower scapulars and rump paler 

 than the back ; wing-coverts, quills, and tail deep metallic green, the terminal portions of the coverts of the same 

 !nn' as the back ; under surface delicate ash-grey, with finer white edges than on the back, which are separated 

 from the grey by a fine dark border. 



Bird of the year. Upper surface less glossy than in the adult, the feathers of the hind neck, rump, and tail-coverts 

 terminally margined with white ; tertials deeply tipped with the same and brownish on their terminal portions ; 

 shorter primaries tipped with white; beneath pale bluish grey, paling to albescent on the centre of the breast 

 and under tail-coverts, which parts have the feathers tipped with brown, most extensively on the latter. 



Obs. Indian examples of this Swift correspond in size to Ceylonese. Mr. Ball gives the wing of two males as 6-05 

 and (M inches, and that of two females as G-15 and 6'35 ; a female from Pegu measured 6-3. 



Distribution. — The Crested Swift is diffused throughout the whole island of Ceylon, extending into all 

 pints of the Kandyan Province and the mountain-ranges of the south. Li the low country it is more common 

 ;is a resident in some districts than in others; but wandering about in its powerful flight as all Swifts must do, 

 it is liable to be met with anywhere as a straggler. I have never found it so numerous on the sea-board of 

 the Western Province during the S.W. monsoon as at the opposite time of the year, although I have occasionally 



