Genus— H IRUNDAPUS. 
Hirundapus Hodgson, Joum. As. Soc. Bengal, Vol. V., 
p. 780 , 1837 . . . . . . . . . . . . Type H. nudipes. 
Also spelt— 
Hirundinapits Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lond.), 1866, p. 607. 
Largest Micropodine birds with small bills, very long wings, short tails with 
needle-points, and small legs and feet. 
The biU is very small and triangular, a prominent culmen ridge being 
present, though it cannot be said to be keeled : the tip is decurved but not 
sharply hooked. The nostrils are long ovals, placed alongside the culmen 
ridge and parallel to it, with a membrane extending to the lateral edge of the 
culmen. The tip of the under mandible is short and spoon-shaped, fitting into 
the tip of the upper mandible. 
The wing is very long, the feathers very narrow and pointed. The 
first primary is longest, the rest regularly decreasing, the secondaries very 
short, exceeded by the last primar}/-. 
The tail is very short and rounded, composed of ten feathers which 
are broad to the tips whence the shafts extend as short, thin needle-points, 
the shafts hard but not very powerful. The tail is not much more than one- 
fourth the length of the wing. 
The legs and feet are small. The tarsus is not feathered, and there are 
neither scutes nor reticulate scales to be observed on the skin-like covering : 
it is longer than the middle toe. The toes also present a skin-like cover, 
scutes being rarely observed on the last joint only. The inner and outer toes 
subequal and not much exceeded by the middle toe : the hind toe long and 
directed backward, but capable of movement. The claws are all long, very 
convex and sharp pointed. 
The phalanges in the outer and middle toes are said to be normal in 
number, whereas in the true Swifts they are recorded as reduced to threb. 
How far these statements are true of all the species referred to the difierent 
groups is not given and wiU be commented upon later. 
When Hartert monographed the Swifts, in the Catalogue of the Birds in 
the British Museum, Vol. XVI., 1892, he admitted p. 470, a genus Chcetura, 
citing as synonj^'ms Acanthylis Boie, Hirundapus Hodgson, Pallene Lesson, 
Hemiprocne Nitzsch, 1840 and Bhaphidura Oates. This association was 
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