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CYPSELID^, SWIFTS. GEN. 117, 118. 183 



Subfamily CH^TURINJE. Spine-tailed Stuifts. 



Toes with the normal number of phalanges ; hind toe not reversed, but some- 

 times versatile ; our species have it obviously elevated, and should have come in 

 the Key under A, like gen. 114, 115 ; but it has not been technically so considered 

 (compare § 87, p. 49). Tarsi never feathered. In the principal genus, Glimtura, 

 containing about half the species of the subfamily, of various parts of the world, 

 the tail feathers are stiffened and mucronate by the projecting rhachis. The other 

 genera are Collocalia and Dendroclielidon of the Old World ; Cypaeloides, and the 

 scarcely different Nephmcetes, of the New. 



117. Genus NEPHCECETES Baird. 



JiJack Swift. Blackish, nearly uniform. Length nearly 7 ; wing as much ; 

 tail about 3, forked, stifEsh, but not mucronate. Western America. Bd., 

 142; Elliot, pi. 20 ; Coop. , 349 niger var. bokealis. 



118. Genus CHJETUEA Stephens. 



7 T ' Chimney 8ivift. Chimney " Sivallow." Sooty brown with a faint green- 



ish gloss above, below paler, becoming gray on the throat ; Avings black. 

 Length about 5 ; wing the same ; tail 2 or 

 less, even or a little i-ounded, spiny. Eastern 

 United States, migrator}^ very abundant in 

 summer. Like the swallows, which this bird 

 so curiously resembles, not only in its form, 

 but in its mode of flight, its food, and twitter- 

 ing notes, it has mostly forsaken the ways of 

 its ancestors, who bred in hollow trees, and 

 now places its curious open-work nest, of bits p,,^, ,,,, ,,, ^ ,, 



■*■ ^ ' rIG. 110. Cliniiiicy swilt, wjtli mucronate 



of twig glued together, inside disused rectnx. 



chimneys. Wils., v, 48, pi. 39, f. 1 ; Nutt., i, 609 ; Aud., i, 164, pi. 44 ; 



Bd., 144 pelasgia. 



%. Vaux's Sivift. Similar; paler; the throat whitish; smaller; length 4^ ; 

 wing the same. Paciiic Coast, U. S. Seems to be different from pelasgia, 

 but perhaps the same as a S. Am. species. Bd., 145 ; Coop., 351. vauxii. 



Family TROCHILID.^. Hummingbirds. 



Tenuirostral Picarim. These beautiful little creatures will be known on sight ; 

 and as the limits of this work preclude any adequate presentation of 'the subject, I 

 prefer merely to touch upon it. The hummers are peculiar to America. Species 

 occur from Alaska to Patagonia, but we have a mere sprinkling in this country ; 

 the centre of abundance is in tropical South America, particularly New Granada. 

 Nearly five hundred species are current ; the number of positively specific forms 

 may be estimated at about three hundred. The genera or subgenera vary with 

 authors from fifty to a hundred and fifty ; perhaps half the latter number of generic 

 names may be ehgible. The birds appear to fall naturally into two groups ; one of 

 these, Ph(vthornithin<M, representing about one-tenth of the whole, is composed 



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