30 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER. 



bird-songs to hesitate long before attrib- 

 uting a new and unknown song to any 

 of our rarer and accidental birds. Very 

 few such birds will be heard in an entire 

 season. 



When at Uxbridge, Sunday, while lis- 

 tening to the song of the purple finch, I 

 saw a pair of white-bellied swallows 

 (tachycineta bicolor) flying far over my 

 head in the blue sky. This swallow is the 

 first of his family to make his appearance 

 in the spring, and after the purple martin, 

 rare about Worcester, is the handsomest 

 swallow we have. It is not, however, 

 nearly so common here as the barn-swal- 

 low, being much more abundant on the 

 sea-coast and in the neighborhood of large 

 lakes. Before the white man came here 

 the swallow built its .nests in hollow trunks 

 of trees, and still does so in unsettled parts 

 of the country, but in this vicinity it gen- 

 erally nests in martin-boxes prepared for 

 its reception. 



