192 FULVOUS OR CLIFF SWALLOW. 



The Cliff Swallow is five and a half inches long. The bill is black, 

 and the feet dusky ; the irides are dark brown. A narrow black line 

 extends over the bill to each eye ; the front is pale rufous, and the re- 

 maining part of the crown black-violaceous ; the chin, throat, and 

 cheeks are dark ferruginous, extending in a narrow band on the hind 

 head ; the upper part of the body is black, glossed with violaceous ; the 

 inferior part of the rump, and some of the tail coverts, are pale ferru- 

 ginous ; the breast is of a pale rufous-ash color, and the remaining 

 under parts are whitish, tinged with brownish-ferruginous. The wings 

 and tail are blackish, the small wing coverts being glossed with viola- 

 ceous ; the inferior wing coverts are ashy-brown: the tail is nearly 

 entire, somewhat shorter than the tips of the wings ; the exterior tail 

 feather is slightly edged with whitish on the inner vane : the wing and 

 tail feathers have their shafts black above, and white beneath. 



This description is taken from our finest male, which is also repre- 

 sented in the plate ; no difference exists between the sexes, and the 

 young, even during early age, can scarcely be distinguished from the 

 parents, except by having the front white instead of rufous. We are 

 informed by Vieillot, that some individuals have all the inferior surface 

 of the body tinged with the same color as that of the throat ; these are 

 probably very old males. 



A very singular trait distinguishes the migrations of this bird. 

 While the European or white variety of the human race is rapidly 

 spreading over this continent, from its eastern borders to the remotest 

 plains beyond the Mississippi, the Cliff Swallow advances from the 

 extreme western regions, annually invading a new territory farther to 

 the eastward, and induces us to conclude, that a few more summers will 

 find it sporting in this immediate vicinity, and familiarly established 

 along the Atlantic shores. 



Like all other North American Swallows, this species passes the win- 

 ter in tropical America, whence in the spring it migrates northward, for 

 the purpose of breeding. It appears to be merely a spring passenger in 

 the West Indies, remaining there but a few days, according to Vieillot, 

 who, not seeing any in the United States, and observing some while at 

 sea, in August, in the latitude of Nova Scotia, supposed that they pro- 

 pagated in a still more northern region. As we have not received any 

 account of their inhabiting the well explored countries around Hud- 

 son's Bay, we are led to the conclusion, that the western w41ds of the 

 United States have hitherto been their summer resort, and that not until 

 recently have they ventured within the domains of civilized man. Be 

 this as it may, they were observed in great numbers, by Major Long's 

 party, near the Rocky Mountains, in the month of July ; and a few 

 were also seen on the banks of the Missouri river. Within ten or twelve 

 years, they have become familiar in different localities of Ohio, Ken- 



