35G 
Birds of Celebes: Hirundinidae. 
of Bauda and Timorlaut. P. irena, concinna and maria are distinguishable by 
having much more black on the chin and throat, P. vigor si by having no black 
here, and by other points (cf. Hartert, Nov. Zool. 1896, 175, 585). 
FAMILY HIRUNDINIDAE. 
The Swallows are birds of aerial habits, taking their insect-food on the 
wing. For the rest, they may be best recognised by the small, flat, triangular 
bill, and by their possessing only nine primaries. They belong to Gadow’s 
Diacromgodine group of Passeres in virtue of the arrangement of the muscles 
of the syrinx. 
'fhe family belongs both to the Old and New Worlds. There are only a 
few species in Australia and Papuasia, and these seem to have got there by 
flight. The genus Hirundo only is represented in , Celebes. 
GENUS HIRUNDO L. 
The true Swallows,, with a flat, triangular bill; the tail forked to nearly 
square; the wing long, the first and second quills the longest and the secon- 
daries about half their length; the secondaries with double, or heart-shaped, 
tips; the tarsus small and bare, about as long as the hind toe and claw; the 
plumage with a metallic gloss on the upper surface. “They all construct nests 
of mud lined with feathers, some making their nests cup-shaped, while others 
add a long tubular entrance. The eggs in some species are speckled, in others 
white without any marks” (Oates). By their nidification, as well as by their 
other habits, they show a certain amount of correspondence with some Swifts, 
for instance, Collocalia, dift'ering herein from other Pitsseres. 
I'wo species in Celebes, one a migrant, and both widely distributed else- 
where, and doubtless birds which have extended their range by flight over sea. 
118. HIRUNDO RUSTICA L. 
Common Swallow. 
The Common Swallow is almost cosmopolitan in its range, extending north 
to about the polar circle, south in winter to the Cape, North Australia, and 
South Brazil; absent in the Pacific Islands'), and New Zealand, and ajDparently 
in Madagascar. Within this area it varies considerably and has been divided 
into a number of species. Sharpe recognises five races or subspecies, other 
1) Except the Pelew Islands, from -whore there is a specimen in the British Museum, fide Sharpe, Cat. 
B. X, 137, a record overlooked by Wiglesworth in “Aves Polynosiae”. Schmeltz (Ethn. Abth. Mns. Godef. 
1881, 3H1) speaks of Hirundo rustica and Chelidon urhica as occurring at Yap in the Carolines, hut no refe- 
rence to actual specimens is made, though they may have been in the Museum Godeffroy. 
