CALMNEY SWALLOW. ; 359 
all winter in these recesses. I have searched hundreds of these holes 
in the months of December and January, but never found a single 
Swallow, dead, living, or torpid. I met with this bird in considerable 
numbers on the shores.of the Kentucky river, between Lexington and 
Danville. They likewise visit the sea-shore, in great numbers, previ- 
ous to their departure, which continues from the last of September to 
the middle of October. ; 
The Bank Swallow is five inches long, and ten inches in extent; 
upper parts, mouse colored, lower, white, with a band of dusky brown- 
ish across the upper part of the breast; tail, forked, the exterior feather 
slightly edged with whitish; lores and bill, black; legs, with a few 
tufts of downy feathers behind; claws, fine-pointed, and very sharp ; 
over the eye, a streak of whitish; lower side of the shafts, white; 
wings and tail, darker than the body. The female differs very little 
from the male. 
This bird appears to be in nothing different from the European 
species ; from which circumstance, and its early arrival here, I would 
conjecture that it passes to a high northern latitude on both continents. 
CHIMNEY SWALLOW.—HIRUNDO PELASGIA.— Fic. 166 
Lath. Syn. v. p. 583, 32. — Catesh. Car. App. t. 8.— Hirondelle de la Caroline, 
Buff. vi. p. 700.— Hirando Carolinensis, Briss. ii. p. 501, 9.—Aculeated - 
Swallow, Arct. Zool. ii. No. 335, 18. — Turt. Syst. p. 630.— Peale’s Museum, 
No. 7663. 
CHJETURA PELASGIA.—Sternens.* 
Chetura pelasgia, Steph. Cont. Sh. Zool. Sup, p. 76.—Cypselus pelasgius, 
: Bonap. Synop. p. 63. 
Tus species is peculiarly our own, and strongly distinguished from 
all the rest of our Swallows by its figure, flight, and manners. Of the 
_ first of these, the representation in Fig. 166 will give a correct idea; 
its other peculiarities shall be detailed as fully as the nature of the 
subject requires. 
* This species has been taken as the type of Mr. Stephens’s genus Chetura. In 
- form they resemble the Swifts, and the first observed distinction will be the struc- 
ture of the tail, where the quills of the feathers are elongated; and run to a sharp or 
subulated point. The bill is more compressed laterally ; the legs and feet possess 
very great muscularity ; the toes alone are scaled, and the tarsi are covered with a 
nae skin, through which the form of the muscles is plainly visible; the claws are 
much hooked. All these provisions are necessary to their mode of life. Without 
some strong support, they could not cling for a great length of time in the hollows 
of trees, or in chimneys 3 and thcir tails are used, in the manner of a Woodpecker, 
to assist the power of the strong feet. They present, in’ a beautiful manner, the 
scansorial form among the F%ssirostres; one species, the Ch. senex, (Cypselus 
senex, Temm..,) even feeds in the manner of the true Climbers, running up the sleep 
rocks, assisted by its tail, in search of food. ‘ ; 
The group will contain a considerable number. We have them from ‘India, 
North and South America, and New Holland ; but I am not aware that Africa has 
yet produced any species. — Ep. ‘ : 
