216 PURPLE MARTIN. 



color above as the back ; tips of the wings dusky ; tongue very short, 

 truncate, and ending in three or four sharp points. The female cannot 

 be distinguished from the male by her plumage, unless in its being some- 

 thing duller, for both are equally marked with reddish orange on the sides 

 under the wings, which some foreigners have made the distinguishing 

 niark of the male alone. 



The nest is built in a hollow tree, the cavity often dug by itself; the 

 female begins to lay early in May; the eggs are usually six, pure white, 

 with a few very small specks of red near the great end. The wliole 

 family, in the month of July, hunt together, the parents keeping up a 

 continual chatter, as if haranguing and directing their inexperienced 

 brood. 



Genus XLVI. HIRUNDO. SWALLOW. 

 Spkcies I. H. PURPUREA. 



PURPLE MARTIN. 



[Plate XXXIX. Fig. 1, Male. Fig. 2, Female.] 



Lath. Syn. iv., p. 574, 21. Ibid, iv., p. 575, 2.3.— Catesb. Car. i., h\.—Arct. Zool. 

 II., No. 333. — Uirondelle bleue de la Caroline, Buff, vi., p. 674. PL Enl. 722. — 

 Le Martinet coidcur de pourpre, Buff, vi., p. 076. — Turt. Si/st. 629. — Edw. 120. — 

 Hirundo subis, Lath, iv., p. 575-24.* 



This well known bird is a general inhabitant of the United States, 

 and a particular favorite wherever he takes up his abode. I never met 

 with more than one man who disliked the Martins and would not permit 

 them to settle about his house. This was a penurious close-fisted Ger- 

 man, who hated them because, as he said, " they eat his peas.'' 1 told tim 

 he must certainly be mistaken, as I never knew an instance of Martins 

 eating peas : but he replied with coolness that he had many times seen 

 them himself " blaying near the hifc, and going scJmip, schnap^" by 

 which I understood that it was his bees that had been the sufi"erers ; and 

 the charge could not be denied. 



This sociable and half domesticated bird arrives in the southern fron- 

 tiers of the United States late in February or early in March ; reaches 

 Pennsylvania about the first of April, and extends his migrations as far 

 north as the country round Hudson's Bay, where he is first seen in 

 May, and disappears in August ; so, according to the doctrine of torpid- 



* We add the following synonymes : — Hirundo purpurea, Linn. Sr/st. i., p. 344. 

 — Omki,. Si/st. I., p. 1020.— Hirundo ccerulca, Vieill. Ois. de VAm. Sept. pi. 25, 

 male : pi. 27. femiilc. 



