DENDROCHELIDON COMATUS.
Hooded Tree Swift.

Cypselus comatus, Temm. Pl. Col. 268.

Dendrochelidon comatus, Boie, Isis, 1844, p. 166.—Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av., p. 66, Dendrochelidon, sp. 4.—Ib.
Rivista Contemporanea, Feb. 1857, p- .—Horsf. and Moore, Cat. of Birds in Mus. East Ind. Comp.,
Voli. p. 110.

Macropteryx comatus, Swains. Class. of Birds, vol. ii. p. 340.—Gray and Mitch. Gen. of Birds, vol. i. p. 54.—Cat.
of Birds in Brit. Mus., part 1. sect. 1. Fissirostres, p. 17.—Blyth, Cat. of Birds in Mus. Asiat. Soc.
Calcutta, p. 87.

Apus comatus, Less. Traité d’Orn., p. 268.

(Pallestre) comatus, Less. Compl. Buff., tom. viii. p. 491.

 

 

OF all the known species of the genus Dendrochelidon, the present is perhaps the most ornamental,—its
colouring being more diversified than that of any of its allies, and its snow-white eye-stripes and moustaches
giving it an air of great elegance and beauty. The specimens from which my drawings were made were
procured in Manilla, whence I received them direct. The usual chestnut ear-mark occurs in one of my
specimens, in the other it is wanting ; judging from the labels appended to Mr. Wallace’s specimens of
D. mystaceus, this chestnut marking indicates that the former is a male and the latter a female.

In Mr. Blyth’s « Catalogue of the Birds in the Museum of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta,” this gentle-
man gives “ Eastern Malasia and Sumatra?” as the habitats of this bird ; while the specimen in the Museum
at the East India House is from Siam, where it was procured by Mr. Finlayson.

The male has the crown of the head, sides of the centre of the throat, the wings, and tail rich steel-
blue, with a greyish-brown tint pervading the shorter primaries and some of the secondaries ; some of the
tertiaries white, forming a conspicuous spot on this portion of the wing; lores black; upper part of the
throat and stripes above and below the eye white, continued in lengthened pencilled plumes ; back, rump,
chest, and abdomen deep olive-brown, with reflexions of light green; a bright chestnut spot on the ear-
coverts ; lower part of the abdomen and under tail-coverts white ; bill and feet olive-brown.

Total length, 64 inches ; bill, +4 ; wing, 53; tail, 315 tarsi, 1.

The female differs only in having the ear-coverts steel-blue instead of chestnut.

The figures are of the size of life.