ILLUSTRATIONS OF ORNITHOLOGY. 
HIRUNDO ALBIGULARIS, Strickland. 
I have long possessed a specimen of this bird, but was unac- 
quainted with its locality till lately, when I procured a second 
individual, in a collection of birds from South Africa, which I . 
therefore conclude to he its true habitat. As, however, I find 
no such bird in the works of Le Vaillant or Dr. Smith, and as no 
specimen exists in the British Museum, I conclude it to be a rare 
and probably new species. Lesson’s description of Hirundo rufi- 
frons (Traite d’Orn. p. 268 ), is apparently meant for this bird; 
but the true rufifrons, Shaw (Le Vaill. Ois. Af., pi. 245 , f. 2 ) has 
the whole throat and upper breast black. 
Front, deep ferruginous ; whole upper parts glossy blue-black ; 
feathers of the nape and upper back whitish at their bases ; 
wings and tail, blue-black ; rectrices, except the two middle ones, 
with a large medial, subquadrate white patch on the inner webs, 
extending from the shaft to the margin, and becoming longer and 
more acutely pointed on the outer rectrices ; lores, and lower 
margin of eyes, black ; chin and throat, pure white ; a distinct 
black bar across the upper breast ; rest of lower parts white, with 
a very pale greyish tinge; lower wing -covers, white; beak and 
legs, black. 
A typical hirundo. Tail deeply forked ; the external rectrices 
narrow and elongate ; secondary quills, and three or four of the 
proximate primaries, considerably emarginate at the tips ; first 
quill longest. 
Total length, 7; beak to front, ; to gape, 5; wing, 5.2; me- 
dial rectrices, 2; external, 3.4; tarsus, 5. — Strickland , February, 
1849 . 
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