Mr. T. Ayres on the Ornithology of Transvaal. 407 
305, Cypselus apus (Linn). Swift. 
Male, shot at Potchefstroom 12th January, 1878. 
To-day numbers of these Swifts were hawking over the 
open country and surrounding marshes in company with 
Swallows and Martins, mostly Hirundo rustica and Cotyle 
paludicola, but with a few of Cotyle cincta, Hirundo alhigula, 
and Hirundo cucullata. It is very rarely that these Swifts 
are seen here in numbers. 
[Two other specimens sent with the above were shot on 
the 15th of January : of the three, one is an adult bird ; but 
the other two show remains of immature plumage, and are in 
the stage which I formerly erroneously supposed to belong to 
a species specifically distinct and peculiar to South Africa 
(see ^ Ibis,-’ 1868, p. 152). 
In a note sent to me by Mr. Ayres, in a previous year, he 
mentions having seen a good many of these Swifts, one of 
which he shot, flying northwards, early in the day, on the 
8th of February.—J. H. G.] 
Cotyle fuligula (Licht.). Brown Martin. 
The specimen sent was shot at Potchefstroom in January, 
and was one of a pair which were hawking about the build¬ 
ings of the town. This species is one of the scarcest of the 
Swallow tribe in these parts. 
Chrysococcyx cupreus (Bodd.). Didric Cuckoo. 
Male, shot at Potchefstroom in December. Irides red. 
Female, shot at Potchefstroom in October. The ovary 
contained a whitish egg with dusky markings. 
[The plumage of the male bird above mentioned agrees 
generally with the description of the adult in Sharpens 
edition of Layard, p. 155 ; an apparently younger male, shot 
by Mr. Ayres on the 12th March, differs in having hepatic 
spots remaining on the primaries, contiguous to the white 
spots, but nearer to the shaft of the feather; also in the white 
bars on the inner surface of the primaries and secondaries 
being somewhat more numerous and in closer propinquity, 
and in the feathers of the chin and throat being of a metallic 
green, merely edged with white, instead of their being entirely 
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