CHIMNE Y SIVALLO W. r 43 



band of dusky brownish 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.) 



PLATE XXXIX.— Fig. 1. 



Lath. Syn. v. p. 583, 32. — Catesb. Car. App. t. 8. — Hirondelle de la Caroline, 

 Buff. vi. p. 700. — Hirundo Carolinensis, Briss. ii. p. 501, 9. — Aculeated 

 Swallow, Arct. Zool. ii. No. 335, 18.— Turt. Syst. p. 630.— Peak's Museum, 

 No. 7663. 



CHJETTJRA PELASGIA— Stephens.* 



Chsetura pelasgia, Steph. Cont. Sh. Zoo!. Sup. p. 76. — Cypselus pelasgius, 

 Bonap. Synop. p. 63. 



This 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 the 

 plate will give a correct idea ; its other peculiarities shall 

 be detailed as fully as the nature of the subject requires. 



* This species lias been taken as the type of Mr Stephens' genus 

 Chcetura. In form they resemble the swifts ; and the first observed 

 distinction will be the structure 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 ai*e covered with a 

 naked 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 ; and their 

 tails are used, in the manner of a woodpecker, to assist the pow r er of 



