MOVEMENTS OF THE CRESCENT SWALLOW 429 



frequeut occurrence on the faces of cliffs of tbe Barren Grounds, 

 and not uncommon throughout tbe course of the Slave and 

 Mackenzie's Rivers ; and that their first appearance at Fort 

 Chipewyan was on the 25th of June, 1825. Major Long's dis- 

 covery was named Hirundo Innifrons by Say in 18 -'3 ; and the 

 following year Audubon published his hitherto MS. name 

 respublicana in the Annals of the New York Lyceum of Natural 

 History, with some remarks on the species, in connection with 

 some observations of Governor DeWitt Clinton, who called 

 the bird Eirundo opifex. Meanwhile, Vieillot had described 

 the West Indian conspecies as Hirundo fulva ; and the future 

 Prince Bonaparte adopted this name for our species in 1825. 

 Thus, in the short space of two years, 1823-25, the interesting 

 Anonyma, "No. 35", before known only by number, like the 

 striped inmates of some of our penal establishments, suddenly 

 became quite a lion, with titles galore in the binomial haut ton. 

 But it was not till 1850 that it was actually raised to the sub 

 lime degree of Petrochelidon, though it had long been taken 

 and held to be a master- mason. 



The Cliff Swallow has been supposed by some to be an 

 immigrant of comparatively recent date in the Eastern United 

 States ; but it does not appear that any broad theory of a gen 

 eral progressive eastward extension is fairly deducible from the 

 evidence we possess. On the contrary, much of the testimony 

 is merely indicative of the dates, when, in various parts of the 

 country, the birds began to build under eaves, and so estab- 

 lished colonies where none existed before ; and some of the 

 evidence opposes tlie view just mentioned. The Swallows, as 

 a rule, are birds of local distribution in the breeding season, 

 notwithstanding their pre-eminent migratory abilities ; they 

 tend to settle in particular places, and return year after year ; 

 and nothing is better known than that one town may be full of 

 Swallows of several kinds unknown in another town hard by. 

 1 suppose the real meaning of the record is " only this and 

 nothing more". Nevertheless, these accounts are interesting, 

 and all have their bearing on the natural history of this re- 

 markable bird. It was unknown to Wilson. In 1817, between 

 Audubon's times of observation in Kentucky, Clinton says he 

 first saw Eave Swallows at Whitehall, New York, at the south- 

 ern end of Lake Champlain. Zadock Thompson found them at 

 Randolph, Vt., about the same time. Mr. G. A. Boardman 

 tells me that they were no novelty at St. Stephens, New Bruns- 



