306 SWALLOW. 



at the tip as in the former, but the wings are longer, and exceed it 

 in length by one inch and three quarters. 



Inhabits Louisiana, and other warmer parts of America, and not 

 uncommon in Paraguay. M. Azara gives a curious account of its 

 manners ; as it flies exceedingly swift, he was not able to obtain a 

 specimen by means of his gun, and therefore made a person watch 

 their motions in the woods, who found their nightly retreat to be in 

 a large hollow tree, into which sixty-two were counted going, by 

 means of two entrances ; he stopped these up, and obtained forty of 

 them, the rest escaped. It should seem from this, that as the sixty- 

 two were made up of at least seven or eight parent birds, it is a 

 species that lives in society. M. Azara says, that both sexes are 

 externally alike; the length four inches and a half, breadth eleven ; 

 the wings, when at rest, reaching the end of the tail ; the plumage 

 dusky, deepest on the head, and mixed with red brown on the under 

 coverts of the tail, with a little white on the under jaw ; irides black ; 

 legs violet. 



B. — Hirondelle acutipenne de Cayenne, Baf. vi. 70. PI. enl. 726. 1. Ind. Orn. ii. 

 581. Gen. Syn. iv. 584. B. 



Length four inches and a half. Plumage above bluish brown; 

 rump grey ; throat and neck before rufous grey ; tail longer, and 

 the ends pointed, as in the others. 



Inhabits Cayenne and Guiana, seldom near inhabited places ; 

 nor is it known whether it would build in Chimnies, being none in 

 those parts ; it must therefore place the nest against some rugged 

 precipice, steep rock, or hollow of a tree, but would probably court 

 the acquaintance with the human race, and become inmate of the 

 same mansion, should an opportunity offer. 



