268 HIRUNDINHLE. 



young bird of the year, and the outside tail-feathers were 

 not fully grown up. From this bird the figure here in- 

 serted was taken. Since then Mr. John Calvert very kindly 

 brought me his bird to examine, and this proved 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 country. 



The Purple Martin, according to Mr. Audubon, makes 

 its appearance in the city of New Orleans from the 1st to 

 the 9th 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 Mar- 

 tins leaving the United States early in August, Mr. Au- 

 dubon is inclined to consider that they may go farther 

 south from them than any others of the American migra- 

 tory land birds. Interesting accounts of the habits of this 

 species, and the partiality entertained by the Americans 

 for them, will be found in the works of the Naturalists 

 already quoted at the head of this subject. 



Mr. Audubon says, " I had a large and commodious box 

 built and fixed on a pole, for the reception of Martins, in 

 an enclosure near my house, where for some years several 

 pairs had reared their young. The erection of such houses 

 is a general practice, the Purple Martin being considered 

 as a privileged pilgrim, and the harbinger of spring. Al- 

 most every country tavern has a martin-box on the upper 

 part of its sign -board. All our cities are furnished with 

 houses for the reception of these birds ; and it is seldom 

 that even lads bent upon mischief disturb the favoured 



