444 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



Every observing farmer who has seen much of 

 the world has seen the advantages and disadvan- 

 tages of the different kinds of soils ; he has seen a 

 great variety which are denominated old 6elds; 

 some loamy and fine, some coarse and gravelly; 



the lofty cliffs, there is a curious recess, called the 

 Swallow's Cave. Great numbers of swallows in- 

 habit this cavern in the summer season, and 

 build their nests in the upper part. 



The Chimney Swallow attached its nest to the 



some a loose quicksand to a great depth, which I, inside of hollow buttonwoods, and other trees. — 

 should advise no man to cultivate where land is' At the present day, in the fir countries at the 



cheap ; the expense of carting on clay and other 

 materials to enrich and restore this leachy kind of 

 land would be more than it would be worth when 

 done. Let such land be planted with pine trees. 

 On the other hand he has seen a great variety of 

 the heavy, strong soils, some fine and productive, 

 some coarse, stony and cold, some with too much 

 clay ; I have seen hundreds of acres of handaome- 

 ly located land in the county of Esses covered with 

 kill-lamb, forming a complete contrast with the 

 leachy quicksand, and like self-righteousness, the 

 less a man has of it the better he is off, unless he 

 can reclaim it by trenching, or with the subsoil 

 plow ; manure has done but little good on it, where 

 I have seen it applied. Silas Brown. 



Wilmington, August, 1853. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 BIRDS OP NEW ENGLAND. 



THEIR PAST AND PRESENT HISTORY No. 6. 



BY S. P. FOWLER. 

 THE SWALLOW TRIBE. 



We are now about to describe a class of birds, 

 on many accounts, interesting to the cultivators 

 of the soil. They are all insectiverous, never dis- 

 turbing the crops of the farmer, or the fruit of the 

 horticulturist. But perhaps we should make one 

 exception to the general .good character of the 

 swallow tribe, when we come to speak of the Pur- 

 ple Martin. They are in general, social, intelli- 

 gent, volatile, active birds, and being fond of the 

 society of men, they invariably, with one exception 

 leave the forests and solitary places, and seek his 

 presence and protection, whether it be found near 

 the wigwam of the Indian, the log cabin of the 

 Squatter, the quarters of the slave, or the culti- 

 vated gardens and fields of the farmer or horti- 

 culturist. 



There are eight species of the swallow tribe 

 found in the United States, six of whom, and per- 

 haps seven, are to be seen not un frequently, on 

 one farm or in one village in Massachusetts. These 

 eight are the Purple Martin, Barn Swallow, Cliff! 

 Swallow, White Bellied Swallow, Bank Swallow, 

 Chimney Swallow, Rough-Winged Swallow, and 

 Violet Green Swallow. 



Many opinions have been expressed, and no- 

 tions entertained, in regard to the first appear- 

 ance of the swallow tribe in this country. And 

 we have been frequently asked the question, did 

 these birds visit the several parts of our Union, 

 as they do at present, before the settlement of the 

 country by Europeans'? And particularly was the 

 Purple Martin unknown in New England previ- 

 ous to the Revolution. In answer to these ques- 

 tions, we would say, we have evidence that the 

 Barn and Chimney Swallows were known from 

 the first settlement of New England. Josselyn de- 

 scribed these birds as early as 1G38. 



At tliis early period, the Barn Swallow built 

 its nest under the shelving ledges and beetling 

 cliffs, around our shores. At Nahant, in one of 



North, where there are no human habitations to 

 invite the swallow, they build their nests in the 

 lime stone caves. The Purple Martin was known 

 to inhabit the Carolinas more than one hundred 

 and twenty years since. Mr. Catesby, in 1732, 

 published his Natural History of Carolina, Flori- 

 da, &c., where he describes ninety-four species of 

 our birds, and enumerates two Ilirundos — to wit. 

 the Purple Martin and the Barn Swallow. It 

 would seem, by an examination of the very in- 

 teresting correspondence which took place in 1759, 

 between John Bartram and Peter Collinson, up- 

 on the subject of our Natural History, that Mr. 

 Bartram discovered in Pennsylvania four species 

 of swallows, namely the Purple Martin, Barn 

 Swallow, Bank Swallow and Chimney Swallow. 



William Bartram, the fourth son of John Bar- 

 tram, one of our early and most distinguished nat- 

 uralists, the friend and patron of Alexander Wil- 

 son, published in 1782 what has been considered 

 the most complete and correct list of American 

 birds, prior to the work of Wilson, in which he 

 has four species of swallows, viz. : The Barn Swal- 

 low, Purple Martin, Bank Swallow and Chimney 

 Swallow. It will be seen that up to the appear- 

 ance of the American Ornithology by Wilson, in 

 1808, no notice had been taken by our ornitholo- 

 gists of the White Bellied Swallow, it being pro- 

 bably confounded with the Bank Swallow, and by 

 some European writers, with the English Martin. 

 So far as our observation extends, we should think 

 the White-Bellied Swallow in Massachusetts was 

 much less common than the other species, which 

 may be another reason why it was not earlier no- 

 ticed by ornithologists. 



We have now traced the history of the swallow 

 tribe in this country to the time of Wilson, when 

 there were five species of these birds. It was in 

 the spring of 1815, when a new and very distinct 

 species of swallow was just seen by Audubon, at 

 Henderson, on the banks of the Ohio River. He 

 drew up a description of it at the time, and named 

 it the Republican Swallow. This was probably 

 their first appearance in our Union. In 1817, 

 they made their appearance at Whitehall, near 

 Lake Champlain. In 1818, they began to build 

 at Crawford's, at the White Mountains in New 

 Hampshire. In 1827, we saw a large number of 

 these swallows building their nest under the eaves 

 of a barn, situated near the entrance of the Penob- 

 scot River, in Maine. In 1820, they made their 

 appearance on the banks of Point Lake, in lat. 

 65*^ north, as noticed by Sir John Franklin. We 

 first noticed them in Dan vers, in the spring of 

 1839. The question has been frequently asked, 

 where did the Cliff Swallows come from ? In an- 

 swer, we would say, they probably came from the 

 westerly side of the Rocky Mountains. 



Those seen by Sir John Franklin's party in 

 June, 1825, along the whole course of the Slave 

 and Mackenzie Rivers, came undoubtedly from the 

 opposite side of the Rocky Mountains, and not 

 from the Atlantic coasts, as it is found that those 

 mountain ranges do not present a barrier to the 



