142 
CHIMNEY SWALLOW. 
European species; from which circumstance, and its early 
arrival here, I would conjecture that it passes to a high 
northern latitude on both continents. 
CHIMNEY SWALLOW — HIRUNDO PELASGIA. 
Plate XXXIX. Fig. 1. 
Lath. Syn. v. p. 583, 32. — Catesb. Car. App. t. 8. — Hirondelle de la Caroline, 
JBuff. vi. p. 700 — Hirundo Carolinensis, Briss. ii. p. 501, 9 — Aculeated Swallow, 
Arct. Zool. ii. No. 335, 18. — Turt. Syst. p. 630 — Beale’s Museum , No. 7663. 
CH2ETURA PELASGIA Stephens.* 
Chaetura pelasgia, Steph. Cont. Sh. Zool. Sup. p. 76. — Cypselus pelasgius, Bonap. 
Synop. p. 63. 
This species is peculiarly our own ; and strongly distin- 
guished from all the rest of our Swallows by its figure, 
flight, and manners. Of the first of these, the representation 
in the plate will give a correct idea ; its other peculiarities 
shall be detailed as fully as the nature of the subject requires. 
This Swallow, like all the rest of its tribe in the United 
States, is migratory, arriving in Pennsylvania late in April or 
early in May, and dispersing themselves over the whole 
country wherever there are vacant chimneys in summer 
* This species has been taken as the type of Mr Stephens’ genus Chaetura. 
In form they resemble the Swifts, and the first observed distinction will be 
the structure of the tail, where the quills of the feathers are elongated, and 
run to a sharp or subulated point. The bill is more compressed laterally ; the 
legs and feet possess very great muscularity ; the toes alone are scaled, and the 
tarsi are covered with a naked skin, through which the form of the muscles 
is plainly visible ; the claws are much hooked. All these provisions are 
necessary to their mode of life. Without some strong support, they could not 
cling for a great length of time in the hollows of trees, or in chimneys ; and 
their tails are used, in the manner of a Woodpecker, to assist the power of 
the strong feet. They present, in a beautiful manner, the scansorial form 
among the Fissirostres ; one species, the Ch. senex, ( Cypselus senex , Temm.) 
even feeds in the manner of the true Climbers, running up the steep rocks, 
assisted by its tail, in search of food. 
The group will contain a considerable number. We have them from India, 
North and South America, and New Holland, but I am not aware that Africa 
has yet produced any species. — Ed. 
