302 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



182. Hirundo erythrogaster Bodd. 

 Barn Swallow. 



Summer resident, formerly abundant and still common but steadily diminishing in numbers. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



April 5, 1S93, one seen, Waltham, W. Faxon. 



April 20 — September 10. 

 October 7, 1868, one seen, Cambridge, W. Brewster. 



NESTING DATES. 



May 25 — June 10. 



In the days of my boyhood scattered pairs of Barn Swallows bred in the 

 most densely populated parts of Cambridge, and of Boston, also, building their 

 nests under the roofs of piazzas and on the capitals of wooden or stone col- 

 umns that ornamented the fronts of public buildings, such as the State House, 

 for example. During cloudy weather the graceful, tireless birds might be seen 

 almost everywhere, skimming just above the surface of the ground through 

 Harvard Square, over the Common and in the College Grounds, and along 

 the narrowest and busiest of our city streets. They were especially numerous 

 about our own place, for within a few minutes' walk of it, on the Stimpson farm 

 at the head of Sparks Street (where Huron and Concord Avenues now inter- 

 sect), at least forty or fifty pairs nested in an old barn, the doors and windows 

 of which were always left open in summer. There were many such colonies 

 in the region about Fresh Pond and throughout Belmont, Arlington, Lexington, 

 Watertown and Waltham. The Swallows, for a few days after their arrival in April, 

 and for several weeks in July and August after their young had taken wing, con- 

 gregated about our fresh-water ponds and marshes in simply countless numbers. 

 Many of those present at such times may have been migrants, but even at the 

 height of the breeding season, whenever the weather was damp and cloudy, 

 hundreds of birds might often be seen near together, flying over Fresh Fond or 

 the neighboring swamps. 



Lowell, in 'My Garden Acquaintance,' says:^ "The barn-swallows, which 

 once swarmed in our barn, flashing through the dusty sunstreaks of the mow, 



1 J. R. Lowell, Atlantic Almanac for 1869, 1S68, 37. 



