These small swifts, living in India, Burma and Malaysia, nest on the roofs of huts thatched with palm-leaves. The detailed landscape background was copied from a drawing lent to Gould by Major H.H. Godwin-Austen, surveyor in India, who made many remarkable ascents in the Himalayas. The landscape showed 'the bungalows, or native dwellings,' where the swift 'invariably builds its nest' belonging to the people of the Garo Hills, Assam. The swift was also found in the Naga Hills, Burma, but not in the intervening Khasia Hills, Assam, where the more highly civilised Khasi race had better houses.
Gould commented on this drawing, 'Such sketches are in the highest degree useful to the ornithologist; and it is to be regretted that similar illustrations of the breeding habits of birds are not more frequently made.'
The swifts were drawn from a specimen lent by Dr. T.C. Jerdon, and are a deep sepia-brown with a slight green iridescence. The female has slightly shorter wings.
T.C. Jerdon, The Ibis, 1871, p.355, pl.X
H.H. Godwin-Austen, Catalogue of Birds in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, 1870, p.94.
DISTRIBUTION: Southern Asia and Malayan Archipelago from India and Sri Lanka east to southwestern China and south through southeastern Asia to Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Bali, Sulawesi and Philippines.
The subspecies C.b.infumatus, which is illustrated here, occurs in India and Sri Lanka