100 RAMBLES ABOUT HOME. 



I have frequently known them to be caught in a " north- 

 easter," they are not otherwise affected by it, so far as I 

 could determine, other than by the delay before men- 

 tioned. Even a sudden change from warm, summer-like 

 weather to decided cold, did not apparently destroy any 

 of them or check their lively movements among the trees. 

 Let us glance at the well-known swallows. For five 

 months of every year we have with us, in greater or less 

 abundance, six species of swallow and one " swift," the 

 common chimney-swallow. Of these, one, the rough- 

 winged swallow, is comparatively rare ; the white-bellied 

 are not particularly abundant, except during certain sea- 

 sons ; the cliff-swallow is erratic, now here, about the 

 barns and stables of a circumscribed neighborhood for 

 several years, and then wholly failing to appear in their 

 former haunts. Not so, however, with the barn-swal- 

 low; with a variation in date of arrival of about ten 

 days, there comes to us in May our full complement of 

 these beautiful birds. They have decreased in numbers 

 during the past fifty years, so observant old farmers have 

 said, but probably not so much as they think. It is more 

 probably the increase in the numbers of other species 

 that makes the numbers of the barn-swallow seem fewer. 

 The bank-swallow, earliest of all, is here literally by mill- 

 ions, and the purple martins, in moderate numbers, sel- 

 dom fail to occupy the boxes placed for their accommoda- 

 tion ; while, lastly, the chimney-swallow, I believe, has 

 never failed to appear in about the same numbers year 

 after year. I have fewer instances recorded of single swal- 

 lows, seen at unusually early dates, than of birds of any 

 other family. Some, indeed, arrive much earlier than 

 others, as for instance the bank-swallow ; but the differ- 

 ence in the date of its arrival, throughout any ten years, 

 is certainly much less than it is with other birds, which 



