Species V. HIRUNDO PELASGIA* 



CHIMNEY SWALLOW. 



[Plate XXXIX. Fig. 1.] 



Lath. Syn. v., p. 583-32. — Catesb. Car. App. t. 8. — Hirondelle de la Caroline^ 

 Buff, vi., p. 700. — Hirundo Carulinensis, Briss. n., p. 501, 9. — Aculcuted Swal- 

 lovj, Arct. Zool. II., No. 335-18. — Turt. Syst. p. 630. 



This species is peculiarly our own ; and strongly distinguished from 

 all the rest of our Swallows by its figure, flight, and manners. Of the 

 first of these the representation in the plate Tvill give a correct idea ; 

 its other peculiarities shall be detailed as fully as the nature of the 

 subject requires. 



This Swallow, like all the rest of its tribe in the United States, is 

 migratory, arriving in Pennsylvania late in April or early in May, and 

 dispersing themselves over the whole country wherever there are vacant 

 chimneys in summer sufficiently high and convenient for their accommo- 

 dation. In no other situation with us are they observed at present to 

 build. This circumstance naturally suggests the query, Where did these 

 birds construct their nests before the arrival of Europeans in tliis 

 country, when there were no such places for their accommodation ? I 

 would answer probably in the same situations in which they still con- 

 tinue to build in the remote regions of our western forests, where 

 European improvements of this kind are scarcely to be found, namely, 

 in the hollow of a tree, which in some cases has the nearest resemblance 

 to their present choice of any other. One of the first settlers in the 

 state of Kentucky informed me, that he cut down a large hollow beech 

 tree which contained forty or fifty nests of the Chimney Swallow, most 

 of which by the fall of the tree, or by the weather, were lying at the 

 bottom of the hollow, but sufiicient fragments remained adhering to the 

 sides of the tree to enable him to number them. They appeared, he 

 said, to be of many years' standing. The present site which they have 

 chosen must however hold out many more advantages than the former, 

 since we see that in the whole thickly settled parts of the United States 

 these birds have uniformly adopted this new convenience ; not a single 

 pair being observed to prefer the woods. Security from birds of prey 

 and other animals — from storms that frequently overthrow the timber, 



* Linn. Syst. i., p. 345. — Gmel. Syst. i., p. 1023. — Lath. Ind. Orn. ri., p. 581. 



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