THE WHITE-RUMPED BLACK SWIFT. 
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other male and female they were purplish black ; bill black ; irides dark 
brown. (Davison.) 
Length 5*7 inches, tail 2% wing 5*3, tarsus % bill from gape '8. The 
female is rather smaller. The fork of the tail measures -3. 
The White-rumped Black Swift was observed by Mr. Davison in the 
south of Tenasserim. It has not yet been noted from any other part of 
Burmah. In the month of January I once observed a pair of Swifts 
between Pegu and Rangoon, and found their nest under a wooden bridge 
at Wanetkone. I was unable to shoot either of the birds, and I am con- 
sequently unable to state with certainty whether they were the present 
species or the allied C. qffinis. As this latter is pretty certain, however, to 
occur in Burmah, I append a short description of the bird ^. 
C. subfurcatus has a rather wide range. It is found in South China, Cochin 
China, the Malay peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and probably also in Borneo. 
Mr. Hume states that he has seen a specimen which was shot in India north 
of Chanda ; and Colonel Godwin- Austen records it from tbe Khasia hills. 
It probably occurs throughout Burmah and the Indo-Burmese countries. 
It is a resident species in South China; and Mr. Swinhoe thus describes 
its nest : — It builds a nest under the eaves and rafters of houses, much 
in the form of the House-Martin ; but the exterior coating of it differs in 
being composed of thin layers of wool, hair, and dried grass, glued one 
above the other with the saliva of the bird and lined internally with 
feathers.'^ The nest I found consisted entirely of grass and feathers glued 
together, was very bulky, but extremely light ; it was fixed to the side of 
a beam of the bridge, and the entrance was much prolonged and tubular^ 
this portion being fixed to the underside of the flooring of the bridge. 
In Penang these birds build their nests in large clusters in houses and 
ruined buildings . 
C. acuticauda, Bl., from the north-west Himalayas, has been found in 
the Andaman Islands, and is consequently not unlikely to visit Burmah 
as a straggler. It has a wing varying, according to sex, from 6'4 to 
6*8 inches in length, and the whole upper plumage is black. It much 
resembles C. apus, the European Swift. C. pekinensis, Swinhoe, appears 
to be the Chinese representative of C. apus ; it is said to have occurred 
in India, and it is likely to straggle into Burmah. 
* CYPSELUS AFFINIS. 
Like C. subfurcatus, but differing in the following respects : — in lia^ving a tail measuring 
only 1'8 incli, the fork being only -1 or '15; in having no part of the plumage black 
except the back, the head, wings and tail being brown, conspicuously lighter than the 
back ; in having the white of the chin and throat pure, with few or no brown shafts, 
and in having this white abruptly defined from the surrounding brown, whereas in 
C. subfurcatus the white is sullied and merges gradually into the surrounding dark parts. 
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