SYSTEMATIC POSITION OF THE GENUS ARTAMUS. 
lost sight of, a tendency to huddle together, or “ cluster, being 
prevalent among the Hirundinidce ; and this is just another link 
in the chain of alliance. The word “clustering” has been used by 
many writers in describing the manners of the swallows. “ I w r as 
travelling, and out early in the morning,” writes White of Sel- 
borne, “ and I could discern, as the mist began to break away, 
great numbers of swallows, clustering on the stunted shrubs and 
bushes, as if they had roosted there all night.” Sir Charles Wager 
relates, that in one of his voyages home, a great flock of swallows 
settled on his rigging ; “ every rope was covered with them ; they 
hung on one another like a swarm of bees. ’ W hen roosting, 
this propensity is peculiarly observable ; and the vicinity of water 
seems the most favourite resort after incubation has been com- 
pleted. We have frequently observed numbers take up their 
retreat in alder or willow bushes fringing a river side ; while in the 
south, reed beds and willow holts are the favourite resort. They 
there cluster together, so that “ the reeds are bent down even to 
the water by their weight.” In another pamphlet, dated Wilts, 
1780 , we have the account of a party, who went with torches to a 
little isle in the Thames, and in less than half an hour brought 
ashore fifty dozen. “ The branches of the trees were loaden with 
them in such a manner, that they had nothing more to do than to 
draw them through their hands, the birds never moving till they 
were secured.” The account of the {C swallow trees of America, 
where thousands of the Chcetura pelasgica roost in the hollow 
boles, clinging and clustering around the inside, may be quoted as 
another instance of this habit being frequent in the family an 
instinctive provision for warmth, after the duties of incubation have 
been completed, and the advance of the season may have decreased 
the heat. 
In the outward form and structure of these birds, we have 
nothing to militate against their admission among the Fissirostres as 
an aberrant form. The flight and attitudes are all swallow-like or 
resembling the bee-eaters ; and the colours of the plumage equally 
assimilate with these two forms much more than with the shrikes 
or drongos. The gape is comparatively wide, the bill dilated at 
the base, and its strength or robust form is not greater than in 
Podarqus or Eurystomus , or even than the strong-billed Ameri- 
can swallows, forming the genus Progne of Boie. The tarsi and 
56 
