100 NORTH AMERICAN OciLOOY. PART I. 



HIRUNDO BICOLOR. 



Hirundo bicoJor, Vieill. Ois. d'Ain. Sept. I, 1807, 61, pi. xxxi. 

 BoNAP. Syn. 1828, p. 65. 

 Rich. & Swains. F. B. A. II, 1831, 328. 

 " AuD. Am. Biog. I, 1832, 491 ; V, 417 ; pi. xcviii. 

 " " NuTTALL, Manual, I, 1832, 605. 



" " AuD. Syn. 1839, p. 35. 



" " " Birds of Am. I, 1840, 175, pi. xlvi. 



" " De Kay, Nat. Hist. N. Y., Birds, 1844, pi. xxix, fig. 1. 



" " Lembeye, Aves de la Isia de Cuba, 1850, p. 46. 



" » Cassin, Syn. N. A. Birds (lUust. BirdsofCal.), 1854, p. 244. 



Hirundo viridis^ Wilson, Am. Orn. V, 1812, 44, pi. xxxviii, fig. 3. 

 " " Sabine, Franklin's Journ. p. 679. 



AuD. Ann. Lye. Nat. Hist, of N. Y. I, 1824, 166. 

 Hirundo leucogaster, Stephens, Gen. Zool. X, 1817, 106. 

 Chelidon licolor, Bonap. Geog. and Comp. List, 1838, p. 8. 



VuLG. — Green and Blue Swallow. While-hellied Swalloio. The Martin (about Boston). 

 Stump Swalloio. Wood Swalloic. JVIiile Martin. Golondrina verdosa. 



In the habits of cfifFerent individuals of this species we find presented, in remark- 

 able contrast, a strict adherence to its primitive breeding peculiarities in certain 

 localities, and a complete departure from them in others. In the more thinly settled 

 portions of the country, especially where old forests with their many hollow trees 

 and decayed stumps are still abundant, we find this Swallow breeding in their con- 

 venient cavities, and seldom induced, even when the eff"ort is made to tempt them to 

 do so, to occupy the boxes put up for their better accommodation. This was the 

 case in the cluster of small islands in the Bay of Fundy around Grand Menan, 

 where these birds are "\ery abundant, and where, although martin-boxes had been 

 prepared for their use, in no instance had they, when I last visited that locality 

 (1851), been induced to occupy them. Hollow trees, holes in stumps, fences, and 

 logs seemed to be their preferred places for nesting. They are in consequence 

 known in such localities by the name of the Wood Swallow. So also, in the west- 

 ern part of the country, hollow trees are so generally their resort, that even Audu- 

 bon, at the time of the publication of the first volume of his Ornithological Biogra- 

 phy, was not aware that they had, in any instances, been known to imitate the Blue- 

 Bird, the Martin, and the Wren, in accepting the hospitalities of man. Yet this 

 fact had not escaped the observation of Wilson. In some parts of the country, es- 

 pecially in Eastern Massachusetts, these Swallows have undergone a change of habit 

 as complete as that of the Purple Martin, of whose boxes they have there possessed 

 themselves. I have even known of their nesting in a rough candle-box with one 

 end knocked out, and placed for them in an accessible situation. Mr. Audubon 

 speaks of their driving the Barn Swallow from its nest and taking possession, and 

 Nuttall mentions their breeding on flat horizontal branches of trees. I have never 

 met with them in either of these situations. 



This species is widely distributed, from the Middle States to the extreme northern 



