96 NORTH AMERICAN OOLOGY. PART I. 



for the beams and rafters of barns and out-buildings, and even ventures into the 

 streets of crowded cities for convenient sites, alike on private and on public build- 

 ings.' The Purple Martin, the Swift, and the White-bellied Swallow leave the 

 hollow trees and stumps that formed their original nesting-places, for the chimneys 

 of dwelling-houses, or boxes adapted to their wants by their human friends, and so 

 disposed as to attract them around their dwelling-houses. 



Mr. Audubon first met with this species on the Ohio Eiver, at Henderson, in 

 1815. Two years later, he found a colony breeding in Newport, Ky., opposite to 

 Cincinnati, which dated back to the same year for its origin. So also did several 

 other colonies in the immediate neighborhood. 



Their presence in New England was first made known to me by receiving, in 

 1837, some of their eggs, from the town of Coventry, in Vermont, near Lake Mem- 

 phremagog. The birds were designated as " Eave Swallows." How long they had 

 been known there I was never able to ascertain. DeWitt Clinton mentions that they 

 made their first appearance at AVhitehall, New York, on the southern extremity of 

 Lake Champlain, as early as 1817.^ It is quite probable they were really j)resent 

 in various other places in that neighborhood several years before naturalists were 

 made aware of it. In the year following, they were noticed by a gentleman whose 

 word is good authority, at Crawford's, near the base of the White Mountains in 

 New Hampshire. In 1830, General Dearborn observed them for the fii'st time in 

 Winthrop, in Maine. It is to be regretted that our knowledge of their first appear- 

 ance in different parts of the Atlantic States is so imperfect, limited as it is to only 

 a few unconnected observations, remote in point of time, in scattered localities, and 

 presenting, in consequence, no connected chain, or any available clew by which we 

 may trace with any degree of certainty the course followed in their migrations into 

 their new haunts. E^en at the present day, there are so few to watch their mo^'e- 

 ments, that very little is known as to the extent of their actual increase throughout 

 the country, or even whether they are increasing. The scattered observations seem 

 to justify the belief, that they have become very generally diffused from Southern 

 Pennsylvania throughout the northern and eastern portion of the continent. 



1 am not aware that it has been obseiTed on the Atlantic coast farther south than 

 Pennsylvania,^ or even in the States bordering upon the Gulf of Mexico, until we 



' Since the above was written, and while tliese pages are passing througli the press, a small colony 

 of Cliff Swallows have taken possession of the freestone front of the Boston Athenteum, immediately 

 upon a frequented street, have there constructed their curiously elaborate nests, and reared their young 

 in security, undisturbed either by the busy throng beneath or the attentions of curious boys. 



2 Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, I, 160. " The Swallow which forms more 

 especially the subject of this communication first made its appearance at Winchell's Tavern, on the high- 

 road about five miles south of Whitehall, near Lake Champlain, and erected its nest under the eaves of 

 an outhouse, where it was covered by the projection of the roof. This was in 1817, and in this year 

 there was but one nest ; the second year, seven ; the third, twenty-eight ; the fourth, forty ; and in 

 1822, there were seventy, and the number has since continued to increase." (Read in 1824.) 



3 Professor Baird of the Smithsonian Institution informs me that it was first observed at Carlisle, Penn- 

 sylvania, in 1841, since which time it has become very abundant. He does not know of its existence 

 in the Atlantic States south of Pennsylvania. 



