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Spine-tailed Swallow. Hirundo caudacuta. 



By the seashore at Brighton, on 28th January, 1854, wind N., 

 ther. 93° in shade at eight a.m., observed several specimens of the 

 spine-tailed swallow; an individual of which was shot by our friend 

 Mr. F. C. Christy, at Richmond, from a flock of some hundreds, on 

 10th December, 1853. The following is a pretty accurate descrip- 

 tion ; but our readers may find a plate of this bird in the " British 

 Birds," by the Rev. F. O. Morris, vol. ii. page 86, figured from a 

 specimen shot in England, on 9th July, 1846, in the parish of Great 

 Hakesley, near Colchester, in Essex: — 



Length from tip to tip, seven and a-half inches; expanse of wing, 

 nineteen inches ; upper side of wings steel black ; the back between 

 the wings dusky brown, approaching to buff; two last minor 

 feathers of each wing, next to body, half white; head dusky black, 

 with metallic hue; rump darkening until it reaches the tail, which 

 is quite black ; throat dirty white, extending one inch and a-half; 

 tail feathers ten in number, u the shaft of each feather projecting 

 beyond the web, forming a row of spines about an eighth of an inch 

 long from the middle feathers, and gradually shortening on the 

 side ones." 



It is indeed an unaccountable circumstance (as remarked by the 

 Rev. F. O. Morris) why and wherefore this bird should have thus 

 winged its way to so remote a part of the earth, our very antipodes. 

 The length of the wings, and the rapidity with which birds of this 

 genus fly, will easily account for the how it winged its course 

 thither, particularly when we remember that the common swallow, 

 Hirundo rustica, is able to traverse the distance of three thousand 

 miles in three days, and that the spine-tailed swallow is able to 

 sustain itself in the air during the entire day without cessation. The 

 flight of the eagle has been said to be so rapid that it would be able 

 to go round the world in nine days. As to the " why'" and the "where- 

 fore" this bird paid a visit to the British shores, we can only attri- 

 bute it to that curiosity which all animals have, more or less (for 

 which, by the bye, it paid dearly), and a desire to see a little more 

 of the world. 



This bird is sometimes called the "needle-tailed" and " pin-tailed 

 swallow." 



