70 PASSERES. — HIRUNDINID.E. 



It is a remarkable fact, that of the seven species 

 of Swallows and Swifts which summer in North 

 America, all of which are stated to migrate to the 

 southward before winter, not one should have 

 occurred to me in Jamaica. Although every day- 

 through the winter months, my almost undivided 

 attention was given to birds ; and though from 

 August to April about thirteen hundred specimens 

 of birds fell into my hands, more than one thousand 

 of which were shot by myself and my servants, not 

 a single individual of a North American species 

 was observed among them. I simply state the fact, 

 leaving any one to draw his ovni inferences. 



At the same time, I should observe, that Mr. 

 Hill thinks that Acanthylis pelasgia visits Jamaica in 

 its periodical migration. Referring to an incident 

 which he had mentioned to me before, he says, 

 " The migratory hirundines, whose squadrons moving 

 in circles, I gave you a sketch of in March last, as 

 seen by me at that time passing over us from south 

 to north, (and I have observed them yearly either in 

 that month or in April,) I conclude to be flocks 

 of pelasgia on their passage to their summer homes 

 northward, after wintering in the tropics. The 

 circular movement of the migratory retinue ; the 

 direction of their flight ; their known wintering on 

 the neighbouring intertropical shores ; their associa- 

 tion at all times in multitudinous numbers ; and the 

 cry with which they announce their passage, as 

 they leisurely course round, — tsippee, tsippee^ tsippee^ 

 seem to me so many identifications of this species." 



The Blue Swallow has the same propensity to 



