336 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



placing itself under tlie protection of man throughout that wide extent of 

 territory. Mr. Audubon met with this species at Henderson, on the Oliio, in 

 1815. Two yeai-s later he found a colony breeding in Xewport, Ky., which 

 dated back to the same year. Several other colonies in that neighborhood 

 also first appeared in the same year. In 1837 I received their eggs from 

 Coventn,', \t., at which time they were a new species to me. They were 

 there known as the " Eave Swallow," and the time of tlieir first apjjearance 

 could not be determined. I first met with them in 1839, at Jaffrey, N. H., 

 where they had made their first appearance the year before, and were not 

 then known to be anywhere else in that vicinity. The same year I after- 

 wards found tliem in Burlington, \t., where they had been known only for 

 three years. When or wjiere they first appeared in Massachusetts is not 

 known. I first observed a large colony of them in Attleborongh in 1842. 

 Its size indicated the existence of these birds in that place for several years. 

 The same year they also appeared, ajiparently for the first time, in Boston, 

 Hingham, and in other places in the neighborhood. 



In 1824, De Witt Clinton read a paper to the New York Lyceum, stating 

 that he had met with these birds at Whitehall, N. Y., at the southern end of 

 Lake Champhiin, in 1817, about tlie time of their first appearance on the 

 Ohio ; and liev. Zadock Thompson met with them in Ifandolph, Vt, at about 

 the same period. General Dearborn noticed them for the first time in Win- 

 throp. Me., in 1830. They first appeared at Carlisle, Penu., in 1841. 



Professor Verrill discovered, in 1861, a large colony of these birds breeding 

 on the high limestone cliffs of Anticosti, apparently in their original condi- 

 tion, and entirely removed from the influences of man. This suggested an 

 inquiry as to their early presence in Nortlieastern America. From the in- 

 formation he received, he was led to conclude that this Swallow was known 

 to certain parts of Maine earlier than its first discovery anywhere in the 

 West. Whether these birds were indigenous to the West or not cannot now 

 be determined. That tlioy were discovered there only so recently as 1820 

 proves nothing. We only know that in certain localities — such as Eock 

 Eiver on tlie Mississippi, and at Anticosti on the St. Lawrence — their occur- 

 rence in large niimbers in their former normal condition of independence 

 suggests in eitlier locality an equally remote beginning. It is possible, and 

 even probable, tliat in favorable localities in various jiarts of tiie country they 

 existed in isolated colonies. The settlement of tlie country, and the multi- 

 plication of convenient, sheltered, and safe places for tlieir nests, gradually 

 wrought a change in their liabits, and greatly multiplied their nimiber.s. .Vt 

 St. Stephen, N. B., and in that neighborhood, Mr. Boardman found this 

 species as abundant in 1828 as they have been at any time since. They were 

 then very plentiful under the eaves of several old barns in that part of the 

 country. Yet twelve years afterward they were entirely unknown on the 

 lower Kennebeck. 



Dr. Cooper found this to be an abundant species in California, on the 



