258 HIRUNDINID.E. 



bird of the year, and the outside tail-feathers are not fully 

 grown up. From this bird the figure here inserted was 

 taken. Since then Mr. John Calvert very kindly brought 

 me his bird to examine, and this proves 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 first to 

 the ninth of February, occasionally a few days earlier. At 

 the falls of the Ohio they arrive from the 1 5th 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 



