SWALLOWS. 147 



" ' It appeared in 1822 at Whitehall, on the fifth of June, and 

 departed on the twenty-fifth of July, and these are the usual 

 times of its arrival and disappearance.' ' 



Audubon states, but where I do not now remember, that the 

 Cliff Swallows were found in New England on the first settle- 

 ment of a certain town in it, many years ago. 



III. TACHYCINETA. 



A. BICOLOR. White-breasted Swallow. White-bellied 

 Swallow. A common summer resident nearly throughout 

 New England.* 



a. About six inches long. Lustrous steel green above. f 

 White beneath. 



b. The nest is usually built in a martin-box or other like 

 receptacle, and. in Massachusetts, very rarely in the hole of a 

 tree, as is not unfrequently the case in many other States. 

 The eggs of each set are four or five, J average .75 X.55 of an 

 inch, and are white, unmarked. Two broods are generally 

 raised. 



c. The White-bellied Swallows usually announce spring to 

 the people of Boston and its vicinity in the first week of April ; 

 but after their arrival they are sometimes obliged, when dis- 

 couraged by the cold, to retreat temporarily southward to a 

 warmer latitude. As our ancestors long since discovered this 

 fact in relation to their Swallows, they have handed down to us 

 the wise proverb that " one swallow does not make a summer." 

 The White-bellied Swallows return to their winter homes about 

 the middle of September, when all the other Swallows have 



* Twenty years ago this Swallow bred t Many breeding but perhaps imma- 



abundantly over the greater part of ture females have only a trace of green 



New England, nesting chiefly in holes on the upper parts. W. B. 



in trees in the more northern portions, J Sets of six eggs each are by no 



almost invariably in bird-houses in means uncommon, and I once found a 



Massachusetts and to the southward, nest containing seven eggs, all of which 



Its numbers in the north have not di- had been laid apparently by the same 



minished, but throughout southern bird. W. B. 



New England the House Sparrow has They often occur about Boston in 



long since driven it from the cities and early October, frequently up to the 



larger towns, and it is fast becoming 10th or 12th and occasionally as late as 



an uncommon summer bird, although the 15th. W. B. 

 great flights pass and re pass through 

 this region during migration. W. B. 



