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Show 1867.] REV. H. B.TRISTRAM ON NEW SOUTH-AFRICAN BIRDS. 887 bird is a trifle smaller than that of most of my Euronean and Asiatic J . i specimens; but the coloration is very distinct. The whole of the upper plumage is a uniform brown black, very much darker than that of C. melba ; the white of the throat is much less in extent, and gently blends into the brown of the pectoral collar. In C. melba the pectoral collar is a narrow gorget of about | inch in diameter. In the South-African species it extends for a breadth of about 2 inches, leaving only the abdomen white; while the flanks, white in the northern species, are brown in this. It may seem strange that so well-marked a species should have hitherto nearly escaped observation ; but a Swift is a bird more often seen than obtained, and the only author I have been able to ascertain as speaking of the present species from personal examination is Levaillant. Mr. Gurney has not received this bird from Natal; and I am unable to discover a South-African specimen in any museum, except the British Museum, to which I have had access. I should have dedicated it to Mr. Layard, to whom ornithologists are deeply indebted for his persevering and almost unaided researches in the fauna of South Africa, but for Vieillot's name of C. gutturalis having been specially applied to Levaillant's figure. CYPSELUS GUTTURALIS, Vieill. Magnitudine C. melbae, sed supra ceneo-niger, nee fuscus : gutture medio albo, lateraliter grisescente: pectore toto et lateribus metal lice grisescentibus: abdomine medio tantum albo. Mus. H. B. Tristram. I have also received from Mr. Layard several specimens of a Swift, labelled C. apus, but which differ from our Common Swift, exactly as described by Dr. Sclater in P. Z. S. 1865, p. 599, in their lighter colour above, particularly on the secondaries and scapulars, in the white feathers of the gular patch (which is much smaller, presenting a narrow black central line), and in the feathers of the lower back, belly, and under wing-coverts being narrowly margined with white. Mr. Gurney's specimens from Natal have the same characteristics. As all the specimens known from South Africa agree in these peculiarities, I venture to submit that Temminck's M S . name in the Leyden Museum should be recognized, and that the South-African representative of Cypselus apus should be acknowledged as Cypselus barbatus, as has been already suggested by Dr. Sclater. Specimens in the same collection have also enabled me to recognize a new species of the Saxicoline genus obtained by Dr. Kirk on the Zambesi. Dr. Kirk, in his paper on the " Birds of the Zambesi Region" (Ibis, 1864, p. 318), mentions "Campicola, pileata, among the rocks of the Murchison Rapids, common ; in other situations not observed." This is the only Chat obtained in those regions. I possess one of Dr. Kirk's type specimens, and, on comparing it with skins from the Cape of Good Hope, find it clearly a distinct species, though representative of Campicola pileata (Gm.). The dimensions are smaller in every way; the white on the forehead is |
