356 Miscellanies. 



the quadrupeds, fishes, and reptiles of the Province of Guayana. The 

 number of species is not less than five hundred, and the admirable 

 preservation in vi^hich these objects have arrived, is matter of con- 

 gratulation and surprise. We have much pleasure in adding, that the 

 liberality of Dr. Hering to the Academy has been suggested and di- 

 rected by the Rev. Lewis De Schweinitz, of Bethlehem, Penns. The 

 collections in question were submitted to the discretional distribution 

 of the latter gentleman, who immediately transmitted them entire to 

 the Academy of Natural Sciences. 



4. Swallows. — Dr. Steel states that he had not had opportunity, 

 and I have not had leisure, to compare the facts stated by him with 

 the description of this bird in the Ornithology of Bonaparte.* — Ed. 



Extract of a letter from Dr. J. W. Steel, of Saratoga Springs, to 

 the Editor, dated Dec. 9, 1830. 



After adverting to the notice of Mr. Samuel Woodruff, in the last 

 No. of this Journal, page 172, and to a similar notice, published some 

 years since, by Mr. George Clinton, Dr. Steel adds the following 

 facts, the amount of which is condensed from his letter. 



"In 1800, I first noticed a colony of these birds at Union, in 

 Maine : their nests were constructed of mud, and occupied the entire 

 front of a long barn, filling the space under the eaves. Some intel- 

 hgent persons at the place, stated that the nests were made by the 

 Bank Swallow or Sand Martin, (Hirundo riparia) whose mode of 

 excavating their dwellings in high banks of sand, is well known : in 

 the present instance, the bird, finding no suitable spot in that, then 

 new settlement, to construct its usual habitation, (there being no sand 

 banks in that part of the country,) it had recourse to the expedient 

 of constructing an artificial bank for its immediate accommodation, 

 thus indicating a degree of ingenuity, but imperfectly expressed by 

 the usual word instinct. 



Five years ago, in Greenfield, eight miles north of Saratoga 

 Springs, I discovered some similar nests, beneath the eaves of a 

 small barn, and saw the birds busy in repairing their old habitations, 

 and in constructing new ones, and I was soon convinced that they 



See note on page 354. 



