THE ALPINE SWIFT. 



173 



white- bellied swift of Gibraltar; and on receiving from my friend — 

 before alluded to — the description given by Latham in his Synopsis of 

 that bird, I had no further doubt on the subject. The Quarterly 

 Review, in an article on American Ornithology, mentions a specimen 

 having been shot off the coast of Ireland ; but I am not at present 

 aware that naturalists have noticed any other as having been seen 

 in the British Isles. I find no notice of it in your valuable edition of 

 Montagu. Latham gives the length eight inches and a half, and weight 

 two ounces five drachms. He says the species is not numerous ; that it 

 builds in the holes of the rocks in the mountainous parts of Spain, and 

 is found at Gibraltar, and in Savoy, &c. 

 Old Buckenham, near Attleboro\ Norfolk, 

 mh Feb., 1833. 



THE ALPINE SWIFT. {Cypselus Alpinus, Temminck.) 



Hirundo Melba, Linn. i. 345. Gmelin, i. 1023. Germ. iv. tab. 413. Faun, 

 Arag. 90. Latham, Ind. ii. 582. Gen. Syn. iv. 586. Gen. Hist. vii. 323. Vieillot, 

 Gall. No. 121. Baron Cuvier, Regne Anim. i. 395. Hirundo Alpina, Scopoli, Ann. 

 i. 166. No. 252. Bechstein, Nat. Deutsch. iii. 935. Hirundo major Hispanica, 

 Brisson, ii. 504. Klein, 83, iv. 2. Micropus Alpinus, Meyer, Tasschenb. Deutsch. 

 i. 282. Cypselus Alpinus, Temminck, Manuel, ii. 423. Lesson, Manuel, i. 416. 

 Ranzani, iii. 4, 195. Le Grand Martinet a ventre blanc, Buffon, v\. 660. Drapiez, 

 Diet. Class, x. 236. Cipselo Alpino, Ranz. 1. c. Rondine magoiore, Storia Nat. 

 Uccelli, iv. tab. 413. Alpen Schwalbe, Meyer, Vog. Deutsch. i. 8. Greatest Martin 

 or Swift, Edwards, Glean, tab. 27. White-bellied Swift, Shaw, Zool. x. 74. 



All the upper parts of the body are of a uniform greyish brown, 

 having in some lights a metallic gloss or iridescence of greenish or 

 reddish, more particularly on the wings and tail, which are darker. 

 The throat, breast, and belly are white, but there is a band across the 

 breast of brownish grey, intermixed with black. The iris is brown, the 

 bill is blackish ; the legs carnation red, covered with long brownish 

 feathers on the fore and inside. The tail is forked like the common 

 swift, and the wings are likewise very long. The length is about nine 

 inches, the bill half an inch, the breadth of the expanded wings twenty 

 inches, and weight is about two ounces and a half. 



Ranzani says it is usually first seen about Modena on the 12th of 

 March, and in Savoy at the beginning of April ; and Mr. White 

 observed them arrive at Gibraltar about the 25th of March. It is com- 

 mon indeed, in most of the mountainous countries in the south of 

 Europe, building in rocks a nest composed of straw, moss, dried leaves, 

 and the like, simply interlaced according to Spallanzani, and without 

 any glutinous material to bind it. On the contrary, Meyer, Wolf, and 



