° 1912 J Rhoads, Ornithological Publications of C. S. Rafinesque. 193 



as new, which might be reduced to less than 50, by comparing them 

 with Vieillot's new species; but increased to about 70, by adding 

 thereto several birds which Wilson did not consider as new, and 

 blended with foreign species, while they are really distinct, and 

 ought to be separated, distinguished and named, as I have done 

 in my manuscript criticism on his work. 



Extensive as this number may appear it is less than one half of 

 the real number of our birds. In Ord's Catalogue of the Birds 

 of the United States 573 species are enumerated; but in my Manu- 

 script Catalogue I have ascertained and distinguished above 660 

 species, among which about 60 species, have been discovered by 

 myself and described as new; Some of these are already published; 

 but the greatest part are only extant in my manuscripts. 



Among this number I have already observed and ascertained 

 that upwards of 200 species are found in Kentucky, nearly 40 of 

 which are new for the science of ornithology. These new species 

 belong principally to the Genera or tribes of Warblers, Rails, 

 Hawks, Ducks, Swallows, &c. 



Some of our Birds belong even to new Genera, and I published 

 in 1818 in the French Journal of Physics and natural history, the 

 description of a new genus under the name of Rimamphus citrinus, 

 to which a single species belongs, which was first discovered in 

 1808 near Louisville by Mr. Audubon, and mistaken for a War- 

 bler; but it is distinguished from that tribe by its bill open on the 

 sides, and round mandibles. It is besides a silent bird of a pale 

 yellow colour. 



There are two species of Swallows in Kentucky, besides several 

 well known species. One of them the red-head Swallow {Hirunde 

 phefiicephale in ornithology) was already mentioned in my annals 

 of nature No. 1. spec. 16. It is a rare species; grey above, white 

 beneath, with a scarlet head, the bill and feet black. 



The second species I shall now describe and call it the Blue 

 Bank-Swallow. I have given it the scientific name of Hirundo 

 alhifrons which means the Swallow with a white forehead. It is 

 very remarkable by its unforked tail: almost all the Swallows 

 having a large forked tail, and a few species a large stiff and sharp 

 tail; but in this new Swallow the tail is small and truncate, neither 

 sharp, stiff nor forked; this peculiarity occurs also in a South 



