346 BIRDS OF BRITISH GUIANA. 



These beautiful banded Swallows kept at first to two levels in the 

 air ; close to the water, fairly skimming its surface, and high up 

 above the tallest trees — marking, I suppose, the early morning 

 distribution of gnats and other insects. Most delicate and fairy- 

 like they appeared when perched on some great orchid-hung dead 

 branch protruding from the water." 



P. 175. — " Early in the evenings, about six o'clock, all the 

 ■ Banded Swallows of the surrounding region passed overhead in a 

 dense flock, two or three hundred in all, soaring with a steady, 

 half-sailing flight very diflFerent from the dashing swoops which 

 carry them over the lake when feeding during the day. Now they 

 are headed northward to some safe roosting- place and with no 

 thought of passing gnats, the myriads of graceful, glossy blue 

 forms, each crossed on the breast with a band of white, made a 

 most beautiful sight. In the morning their return flight was *by 

 twos and threes, with rapid darts here and there." 



P. 200. — " White-banded Swallows now hovering before a 

 trunk and snatching a spider, now dipping at full speed for a 

 floating gnat.'' 



561. Atticora melanoleuca. 

 Belted Swallow. 



Hirundo melanoleuca Wied, Eeis. Bras. i. p. 345, 1820 (Eio Grande de 

 Belmonte) ; Cab. in Sohomb. Eeis. Guian. iii. p. 672, 1848. 



Atticora melanoleuca Salvin, Ibis, 1885, p. 206 ; Sharpe. Cat. B. Brit. 

 Mus. X. p. 185, 1885 ; Brabourne & Chubb, B. S. Amer. i. p. 328, 

 no. 3341, 1912. 



Adult male. Head, entire back, lesser and median upper wing- 

 coverts, upper tail-eoverts, a band across the upper breast, and 

 under tail-coverts glossy blue-black ; throat and abdomen pure 

 white ; base of forehead and lores velvety-black ; bastard-wing, 

 greater upper wing-coverts, primary-coverts, and flight-quills 

 soot-black, the last paler on the inner webs ; tail similar in colour 

 to the flight-quills ; axillaries, under wing-coverts, under surface 

 of quills, and lower aspect of tail pale brown ; marginal under 

 wing-coverts edged with white. 



Total length 135 mm., exposed culmen 5, wing 89 ; tail — middle 

 feathers 30, outer ones 69 ; tarsus 11. 



The specimen described was collected on the Ituribisi River in 

 October 1908. 



