FAMILY HIRUNDINIDAE 



2 9 



The brown upper surface and the band across the breast in this mar- 

 tin present much the same color pattern as that of the much smaller 

 Bank Swallow. In their winter flocks these martins are active in cir- 

 cling in the air over wire lines and other perches. In the main, the 

 migrants are silent. On their nesting grounds in Argentina I have heard 

 them giving low calls, chu chu chup, that have little carrying power. 



Baird (Rev. Amer. Birds, 1865, pp. 272, 383) separated this species 

 under the generic name Phaeoprogne, distinguished from Progne by 

 slightly forked tail, with the tips of the feathers rounded, and weaker 

 bill and legs, with a line of feathers on the inner margin of the tarsus 

 for two-thirds its length. Sharpe (Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. 10, 1885, 

 p. 172) cited "P. tapera" as the type of Phaeoprogne. Zimmer (Amer. 

 Mus. Nov., no. 1723, 1955, pp. 9-10) recognized the genus as valid, 

 with two forms listed as races under tapera, the older of two names. 

 The characters on which the genus Phaeoprogne was proposed by 

 Baird are slight, so that it was not recognized as distinct from Progne 

 by Mayr in his revision of Peters's account of the Hirundinidae 

 (Check-list Birds of the World, vol. 9, 1960, p. 85) . 



The nominate race, Progne tapera tapera (Linnaeus), has the throat 

 less extensively white, with the gray of the breast extending on the 

 lower foreneck, and without the dusky black spots down the center of 

 the lower breast and upper abdomen. It appears to be resident from the 

 Caribbean coast and the Magdalena Valley, Colombia, to the Guianas 

 and south to Peru and northern Brazil. 



NEOCHELIDON TIBIALIS MINIMA Chapman: White-thighed Swallow, 

 Golondrina Muslos Blancos 



Figure 2 



Neochelidon tibialis minimus Chapman, Amer. Mus. Nov., no. 138, October 18, 

 1924, p. 9. (Juntas de Tamana, Choco, Colombia.) 



Small; upper surface wings and tail dull black; underneath dull 

 brown; feathered area of lower leg white. 



Description. — Adult (sexes alike), upper surface of body dull, some- 

 what brownish, black; loral area, wings, and tail dull black; undersur- 

 face, including underwing coverts, grayish brown; feathers of lower 

 leg (slightly developed as a tuft) white. 



Immature, feathers of lower surface faintly edged with dull white. 



A male, collected at the head of the Rio Guabal, Code, July 28, 1962, 

 had the iris dark brown; bill black; tarsus and toes fuscous-black; 

 claws black. A female near the Peluca Hydrographic Station, Colon, 



