Coues on the Eave, Cliff, or Crescent Swallow. 107 



more." Nevertheless, these accounts are interesting, and all have 

 their bearing on the natural history of this remarkable 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 southern 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 Brunswick, in 1828. Dr. Brewer received their 

 eggs from Coventry, Vt., in 1837, when they were new to him ; 

 but the date of their appearance there was not determined. They 

 are said by the same writer to have appeared at JatFrey, N. H., in 

 1838; at Carlisle, Pa., in 1841 ; and the appearance of a large 

 colony which he observed at Attleborough, Mass., in 1842, in- 

 dicated that they had been there for several years. During the 

 last-mentioned year they were present, apparently for the first 

 time, in Boston and neighboring metastatic foci of the globe. The 

 record also teaches that these birds do not necessarily change from 

 "Cliff" to "Eave" Swallows in the East, for in 1861 Professor 

 Verrill discovered a large colony breeding on limestone cliffs of An- 

 ticosti, remote from man, and in their primitive fashion. That the 

 settlement of the country has conduced to the general dispersion 

 of the birds during the breeding season in places that knew him 

 not before, is undoubted ; but that any general eastward migration 

 ever occurred, or that there has been in recent times a progressive 

 spread of the birds across successive meridians, is less than doubt- 

 ful, — is almost disproven. Birds that can fly like Swallows, and 

 go from South America to the Arctic Ocean, are not likely to cut 

 around vid the Mississippi or the Rocky Mountains, houses or no 

 houses. Moreover, the scarcity or apparent absence of these birds 

 in the Southern States, or most portions thereof, may be simply 

 due to the ineligibility of the country, and only true for a part of 

 the year. It cannot be that the breeding birds of Pennsylvania, 

 New York, and New England come and go by other than a direct 

 route ; and if not detected in the Southern States, it umst be be- 

 cause they fly over the country in their migrations, and do not stop 

 to breed. It is authenticated that they nest at lea|£ as far south 

 as Washington, D. C, where Drs. Coues and Prentiss found them 

 some twenty years ago to be summer residents, arriving late in 

 April and remaining until the middle of September, though they 

 were not as abundant as some of the other swallows. 



