60 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 233 



lected at La Anna, Pennsylvania, Jime 30, 1914, was in the collection 

 of the late J. Hooper Bowles; Poole (1930, p. 41) wrote that in Berks 

 County, Pennsylvania, two parasitized nests of this swallow had been 

 reported; Wells (1934, p. 130) found "several" parasitized nests at 

 Colony, Kansas. A fifth instance of the barn swallow as a cowbird 

 host has been noted in Maryland by Stewart and Robbins (1958, p. 

 329). The exact data, for which I am indebted to R. E. Stewart, is 

 that a nest containing 1 egg of the swallow and 1 of the cowbird was 

 found in St. Mary's County, Maryland, May 30, 1932. All of these 

 cases involve the nominate race of the parasite and the subspecies 

 erythrogaster of the host. What might have become still another 

 instance was observed at North Eastham, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, 

 by O. L. Austin (1932): a female cowbird was seen trying to enter 

 the nest of a barn swallow but was driven off by the pair of swallows. 



Cliff Swallow 



Petrochelidon pyrrhonota (Vieillot) 



Of all the swallows in the present catalog, this one, because of the 

 difficulties of entrance imposed by the narrow openings of its retort- 

 shaped nests, seems the least likely to be parasitized by the brown- 

 headed cowbird. At La Anna, Pennsylvania, however, on June 30, 

 1914, three nests were found with cowbirds' eggs in them, according 

 to the late J. Hooper Bowles (in litt.), who acquired one of these sets 

 for his collection. Poole (1930, pp. 41, 50) recorded four parasitized 

 nests of the cliff swallow in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Many years 

 earlier. Poling (1890, p. 92) mentioned a cowbird's egg found in a cliff 

 swallow's nest near Chicago by George L. Tappan. This is probably 

 the basis for Bendire's inclusion of this species in his list of cowbird 

 hosts. It is the same record that I erroneously mentioned (1929, p. 

 234) as being by an unsigned, and hence anonymous, observer. The 

 above records all refer to the eastern race of the parasite, M.a. ater. 



Purple Martin 



Progne subis (Linnaeus) 



The purple martin has never been reported in print as a cowbird 

 host. One record, which has been in my files for many years, should 

 be reported now. In 1929 Mr. C. A. Barnum of Detroit, Michigan, 

 wrote me that he had built a martin house and placed it on a pole about 

 20 feet high. When the martins nested in it, he noted that brown- 

 headed cowbirds often came and entered nest compartments for a few 

 moments at a time. He was unable to get up to the nests to examine 

 them, but on several occasions he found broken cowbird eggs around 

 the base of the pole. He did not observe any fledgling cowbirds later 

 with the martins. The fact that he saw cowbirds enter the nest 



