233* HIRUNDINID.E. 



Since tlicn Mr. John Calvert very kindly brought nic his 

 bird to examine, and this proves to be an old male, rather 

 larger than the young bird, and of very brilliant plumage. 

 These two birds, though shot during the same week, were not 

 both killed on the same day, two or three days intervened, 

 and the brood might therefore have been raised in this coun- 

 try. 



The Purple Martin, according to Mr. Audubon, makes its 

 appearance in the city of New Orleans from the first to the 

 ninth of February, occasionally a few days earlier. At the 

 falls of the Ohio they arrive from the 15th to the 25th of 

 March ; at Philadelphia they are first seen about the 10th 

 of April ; they reach Boston about the 25th, and continue 

 their migration much farther north, as the spring continues 

 to open. From the circumstance of these Martins leaving 

 the United States early in August, Mr. Audubon is inclined 

 to consider that they may go farther from them than any 

 others of the American migratory land birds. Interesting 

 accounts of the habits of this species, and the partiality enter- 

 tained by the Americans for them, will be found in the works 

 of the Naturalists already quoted at the head of this subject, 

 but, obliged to confine my notice to the limits of a single leaf, 

 which the bookbinder is to place as directed in the genus to 

 which the bird belongs, I can only add a short description. 

 Bill black ; head, neck, back, upper tail-coverts, and all the 

 under surface of the body shining purple-blue ; wings and 

 tail-feathers black, the primaries edged Avith brown ; the 

 wing-coverts tinged with blue ; legs and feet blackish-brown. 

 Whole length six inches and three-quarters ; wing from the 

 carpal joint to the end of the longest feather five inches and 

 a half The young bird. 



