SPINE-TAILED SWALLOW.
AUSTRALIAN NEEDLE-TAILED SWALLOW. PIN-TAILED SWALLOW.
NEW HOLLAND SWALLOW.
Hirundo caudacuia, LATHAM.
pacifica, LATHAM.
Ch.ce.tura Australis, STEPHENS.
Chaiiura macroptera, SWAINSON.
Hirundo—A Swallow. Caudacuia. Cauda—A tail. Acuta—Sharp.
THIS is the largest of the Swallows yet discovered. It is a
native of the eastern and south-eastern parts of Australia and Van
Diemen's Land. It is believed also to be a native of India.
The only specimen of the Spine-tailed Swallow that has as yet
been met with in this country, was shot on the 8th. of .Inly, 1846,
in the parish of Great Horkesley, near Colchester, in Essex, by a
farmer's son named Peter Ooveney. It is certainly a very strange
and unaccountable circumstance, how, why, and wherefore this bird
should have thus winged its way from so remote a part of the
earth, our very Antipodes, to this island.
Mr. Gould observes of this species that it is so exclusively a
tenant of the air that it is rarely seen to perch, and in cloudless
weather very seldom approaches sufficiently near the earth to admit
of a successful shot. In dull weather, and late in the evening when
cthe prey it seeks' has led the way, it follows it at a lower elevation.
' Its whole form is especially and beautifully adapted for
aerial progression, and, as its lengthened wings would lead us to
imagine, its power of flight, both for rapidity and extension, is truly
amazing.' ' Before retiring to roost, which it does immediately after
the sun has gone down, the Spine-tailed Swallow may frequently be
seen either singly or in pairs sweeping up the gullies, or flying
with immense rapidity just above the tops of the trees, their nevertiring
wings enabling them to perform their evolutions in the capture