PURPLE MARTIN. 189 
PROGNE PURPUREA. 
PURPLE MARTIN. 
(Pirate 18.) 
Hirundo apos carolinensis, Briss. Orn, ii. p. 515 (1760). 
Hirundo subis, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 344 (1766). 
Hirundo purpurea, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 344 (1766); et auctorum plurimorum— 
Gmelin, Latham, Audubon, (Boie), (Degland § Gerbe), (Brewer), (Baird), 
(Newton), &e. 
Hirundo violacea, Gmel. Syst. Nat. i. p. 1026 (1788). 
Hirundo ceerulea, Vierdd. Os, Amér. Sept. i. p. 57, pl. 26 (1807). 
Hirundo versicolor, Viedll. N. Dict. d Hist. Nat. x. p. 509 (1817). 
Hirundo ludoviciana, Cuv. Regne An. i. p. 396 (1817). 
Progne purpurea (Linn.), Bote, Isis, 1826, p. 971. 
Progne subis (Linn.), Baird, Rev. Am. Birds, p. 274 (1864). 
The Purple Martin has a very slender claim to be considered a British 
bird. A single specimen is said to have been shot, early in the year 1840, 
near Kingstown, co. Dublin. The late Dr. Scouler examined and dissected 
it, and it eventually found a place in the Royal Dublin Society’s Museum, 
where it still is. Two other examples were said to have been obtained at 
Kingsbury Reservoir, Middlesex, in September 1842, one of which went 
into Mr. Bond’s possession. Another example is said by Mr. Clarke 
(‘ Handbook of Yorkshire Vertebrata,’ p. 39) to have been shot at Colne 
Bridge, Huddersfield, in 1854; but the statement requires confirmation. 
The Purple Martin is a summer visitor to the United States and Canada, 
ranging northwards above the Arctic circle. It winters in Mexico, where, 
however, a few retire to the mountains to breed. Stragglers have occurred 
in the Bermudas. 
The Purple Martin is as well-known and familiar a bird in America as 
the House-Martin is in England. It arrives, according to Wilson, on the 
south-eastern borders of the United States, from its winter-quarters, late in 
February or early in March, reaches Pennsylvania about the first of April, 
but does not arrive at Hudson’s Bay until May, and leaves the latter 
district again in August. Richardson states that it arrives within the 
Arctic circle before the snow is off the ground, and when the waters are 
still ice-bound. The Purple Martin seems almost as closely associated with 
man in America as the House-Sparrow is in England, with the difference 
that it is a very popular favourite and is encouraged in various ways. 
Wilson states that even the solitary Indian seems to have a particular respect 
for it, and fits up hollow gourds on the tops of the trees near his cabin for its 
reception. It haunts the largest and busiest towns of America and seems 
