oot 



NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



placing itself under the protection of man throughout that wide extent of 

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

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

 dated Ijack to the same year. Several other colonies in that neighborhood 

 also first appeared iu the same year. In 1837 I received their eggs from 

 Coventry, Vt., at which time they were a new species to me. They were 

 there known as the " Eave Swallow," and the time of tlieir first appearance 

 could not be determined. I first met with them in 1839, at Jaffrey, N. H., 

 where they had made their first appearance the year before, and were not 

 then known to be anywhere else in that vicinity. The same year I after- 

 wards found them in Burlington, \t., where they had been known only for 

 three years. When or wliere they first appeared in j\Iassachusetts is not 

 known. I first observed a large colony of them in Attleborough in 1842. 

 Its size indicated the existence of these birds in that place for several years. 

 The same year they also appeared, apparently for the first time, in Boston, 

 Hingham, and in other places in the neighborhood. 



In 1824, De Witt Clinton read a paper to the New York Lyceum, stating 

 that he had met with these birds at Whitehall, N. Y., at the southern end of 

 Lake Champlain, in 1817, about the time of their first appearance on the 

 Ohio ; and Ilev. Zadock Thompson met with them in Randolph, Yt., at about 

 the same period. General Dearborn noticed them for the first time in Win- 

 throp, Me., in 1830. They first appeared at Carlisle, Penn., in 1841. 



Professor Yerrill discovered, in 1861, a large colony of these birds breeding 

 on the liigh limestone cliffs of Anticosti, apjiarently in their original condi- 

 tion, and entirely removed from the influences of man. This suggested an 

 inquiry as to their early presence in Nortlieastern America. From the in- 

 formation he received, he was led to conclude that this Swallow was known 

 to certain parts of Maine earlier than its first discovery anywhere in the 

 West. Whether these birds were indigenous to tlie West or not cannot now 

 l)e determined. That they were discovered there only so recently as 1820 

 proves notliing. AYe only know that in certain localities — such as Eock 

 Eiver on the Mississippi, and at Anticosti on the St. Lawrence — their occur- 

 rence in large numbers in their former normal condition of independence 

 suggests in either locality an equally remote beginning. It is possible, and 

 even probable, that in favorable localities in various parts of the country they 

 existed in isolated colonies. The settlement of the country, and the multi- 

 plication of convenient, sheltered, and safe places for their nests, gradually 

 wrought a change in their habits, and greatly multiplied their numbers. At 

 St. Stephen, N. B., and in that neighborhood, Mr. Boardman found this 

 species as abundant in 1828 as they have been at any time since. They were 

 then very plentiful under the eaves of several old barns in that part of the 

 country. Yet twelve years afterward they were entirely unknown on the 

 lower Kennebeck. 



Dr. Cooper found this to be an abundant species in California, on the 



