Captain Prevost, R. N., obtained a single specimen of this bird on Vancouver Island, which Mr. Sclater compared with Gosse’s Cypselus niger, from Jamaica. He, however, is not satisfied as to their identity, and is inclined to regard the two birds as distinct.
According to Captain Feilner, this species breeds in the middle of June, on high rocks on the Klamath River, about eight miles above Judah’s Cave.
The Black Swift was seen by Mr. Ridgway, during his western tour, only once, when, about the middle of June, an assembly of several hundreds was observed early one morning hovering over the Carson River, below Fort Churchill, in Nevada. In the immediate vicinity was an immense rocky cliff, where he supposed they nested. In their flight they much resembled Chimney-Swallows (Chætura), only they appeared much larger. They were perfectly silent. On the Truckee River, near Pyramid Lake, in May of the same year, he found the remains of one which had been killed by a hawk, but the species was not seen there alive.
Chætura, Stephens, Shaw’s Gen. Zoöl. Birds, XIII, II, 1825, 76. (Type, C. pelagica.)
Acanthylis, Boie, Isis, 1826, 971. (Cypselus spinicauda.)
Chætura pelagica.
1010 ♀
Gen. Char. Tail very short, scarcely more than two fifths the wings; slightly rounded; the shafts stiffened and extending some distance beyond the feathers in a rigid spine. First primary longest. Legs covered by a naked skin, without scutellæ or feathers. Tarsus longer than middle toe. Lateral toes equal, nearly as long as the middle. Hind toe scarcely versatile, or quite posterior; including claw, less than the middle anterior without it. Toes slender; claws moderate. Feathers of the base of the bill not extending beyond the beginning of the nostrils.
By the arrangement of the genera on page 1018, the C. rutila and large white-collared species are excluded from the present genus as restricted. Chætura, as here defined, is a genus of very extensive distribution, species occurring not only in North and South America, but also in Africa and Asia. Among the several American members, three styles are distinguishable, these probably representing only as many species; the several more closely allied forms being, in all probability, but geographical modifications of these three types. They may be arranged as follows:—