HIRUNDINID^. — IIIKUNDO LUNIFRONS. 97 



come to the valley of the Mississippi. It is abundantly distributed along the Pacific 

 shores, from Southern California to Russian America. Dr. Townsend met with it in 

 great numbers in Oregon ; Drs. Ganibel and Heermann and Mr. Samuels found it 

 abundant throughout California ; Colonel McCall met with it also in New Mexico ; 

 and Dr. Woodhouse (Expedition down the Zuili and Colorado Rivers, p. 64) speaks 

 of this species as very common throughout the Indian Territory, Texas, New Mexico, 

 and California. Sir John Franklin's party observed this bird in 1820, (the same 

 year that it was first discovered by Major Long's party, near the Rocky Mountains,) 

 on the journey from Cumberland House to Fort Enterprise, and on the banks of 

 Point Lake, in latitude 65° north. This is the highest northern point to which it 

 has been traced, so far as I am aware. 



I met with these birds for the first time in 1839, in Jaff"rey, N. H., where a large 

 colony had taken possession of the side of an old church, filling its eaves with near- 

 ly a hundred of its curiously formed nests. This large colony had made its first 

 appearance in that town only the year previous. After fiying about, apparently 

 in some uncertainty where to found their little city, they finally pitched upon the 

 side of a large barn in the midst of the village. The inhospitable treatment they 

 received from the boys of the village soon drove them from this place, to find, later 

 in the same season, in the high eaves of the church, a safe asylum against the poles 

 and ladders of their inhospitable tormentors. In the course of the same year, I met 

 Avith several families of this Swallow in the vicinity of Burlington, Vt. They had 

 been commenced, I was informed, only a few years previously. A few pioneers only 

 appeared the first year, but the following spring they were succeeded by large colo- 

 nies. In almost all instances, the first appearance of these birds in any section of 

 the country has been in places not far from Avatercourses, but this has not been 

 universal.-' 



It was several years after this Swallow was known to have become quite common 

 in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont before we have any knowledge of it in any 

 part of Massachusetts, though probably there some years before it was discovered. 

 In 1842, I saw a large colony on the sides of a church in Attleborough, founded the 

 year before. The same year attempts were made to found colonies in Hingham, but 

 the sandy nature of the soil, which made the construction of their nests very diffi- 

 cult, and liable to fall to pieces as soon as the materials dried, have never favored 

 their increase in that town, though a few have bred there each year since that 

 period, but chiefly in solitary pairs. Connected with these unsuccessful attempts, 

 many of which came at the time vmder my daily notice, are several interesting inci- 

 dents, attesting at once the industry and perseverance, as Avell as the sagacity, of 

 these birds. One of these I will mention. 



In the summer of 1843, a pair of Cliff" Swallows, supposed to belong to a colony 

 that had attempted unsuccessfully to make a settlement in. the neighborhood, and 

 had abandoned it in disgust at the friable nature of their structiu-es, more perse- 



' Eev. Zadock Thompson, in his History of Vermont, mentions the appearance of the Cliff Swallow 

 in Randolph, an inland town, very soon after their being first noticed at Whitehall. 



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