Adult Male (Malta, 22nd April) . Upper parts mouse-brown, with a faint metallic gloss in some lights, 

 some of the feathers on the back having a scarcely perceptible lighter margin; quills and tail dull dark 

 brown ; chin and throat white, in front of the eye a black spot ; sides of the head and neck, and a broad 

 band across the breast, similar in colour to the upper parts, but rather darker, and some of the feathers 

 having narrow whitish margins ; abdomen pure white ; flanks, under wing-coverts, and under tail-coverts 

 dull mouse-brown, most of the feathers having whitish margins on the terminal portion ; tarsus covered 

 on the front with brownish feathers ; bill blackish ; iris dark brown ; feet dull yellowish brown. Total 

 length to the tip of the tail about 8-5 inches, bill from gape 1-0, wing 87, tail 3-8, tarsus 0"6. 



Female. Similar to the male. 



Young fresh-fledged (Bern) . Much greyer and rather darker than the adult bird, almost all the feathers 

 where the plumage is not white edged with white. In this specimen the wings scarcely extend beyond 

 the tip of the tail, and on the lower part of the abdomen there are remains of down. 



Nestling. M. Fatio describes the nestling as being covered entirely with grey down, like a young Raptor. 



Obs. I have carefully compared two specimens from South Africa in Canon Tristram's collection with my 

 series of European examples, and can find no specific difference. It appears, however, that these two 

 birds have the dark band on the breast a trifle broader than the average of my specimens. 



This, the largest of our European Swifts, is found in Central and Southern Europe (occasionally 

 straggling as far north as Great Britain), Asia as far east as India, and Africa as far south as the 

 Cape of Good Hope. Throughout Europe it is a summer visitant, migrating southward at the 

 approach of winter to return again to its breeding-haunts in the spring. 



As a rare straggler it has been met with in Great Britain; Yarrell (Brit. Birds, ii. pp. 276, 

 277) records the following occurrences, viz. : — one, shot early in June 1820, at Kingsgate, in the 

 Isle of Thanet; one near Buckenham church, Norfolk, in September 1831; one Rathfarnham, 

 Ireland, early in March 1833; one Saffron Walden, in Essex, in July 1838; one off Cape Clear, 

 on the south-west point of the coast of Ireland; one Oakingham, 8th October 1841 ; one Dover, 

 20th August, 1830; and one St. Leonards, in October 1851. Besides these Mr. Harting enu- 

 merates many other instances of its having been seen or obtained, but chiefly the former. 

 Mr. Stevenson, in referring to the above-mentioned record of its occurrence in Norfolk, says that 

 the specimen was obtained in September 1831, and not, as Yarrell states, in October. It does 

 not appear ever to have occurred in Scotland ; but Thompson (B. of Ireland, i. p. 418) says that, 

 besides the specimen shot at Rathfarnham, one was obtained at Castle Warren, near Doneraile, 

 in June 1844 or 1845. 



It has not been recorded from Norway or Sweden, but has been met with in Denmark on 

 one occasion; for Kjserbolling states that Mr. Schade picked one up dead on the 17th June, 1804, 

 at Lodderup church, on the island of Mors. In Germany its range is restricted to the mountains, 

 and only as a straggler is it met with elsewhere. Borggreve says that it has once been killed 

 in Mecklenburg, but doubts the correctness of statements to the effect that it has occurred in 

 Thuringia. He further says that Ratzeburg observed it on several occasions at Heligoland, 

 where several specimens have been obtained. Dr. Girtanner (Ber. St.-Gall. naturw. Gesells. 

 1867, p. 106) says that stragglers have been found near Offenbach, Coburg, and Berlin, but that 



