flourished beyond 1857, when Dr. Brewer elaborated it with care, describing and figuring 

 the speckled egg of the Cliff or Barn Swallow as that of the Violet-green, and discrediting 

 Nuttall's observation respecting the probable nesting of the species in trees. The fact 

 is, that the Violet-green Swallow nests in holes in trees and elsewhere, and lays a pure 

 white egg, exactly like T. hicolor." 

 Professor Coues proceeds : — 



" I am uncertain to whom we owe the discovery of the fact that tlie eggs of the 

 Violet-green Swallow are white and unmarked. The information was long delayed in 

 coming, partly owing, no doubt, to the difficulty of getting at the eggs, even wlien the 

 artfully hidden retreat is discovered. The nest may be in honey-combed rocks, entirely 

 out of reach ; or in the top of a blasted tree, too rotten to be scaled with safety ; or out 

 of reach in a knot-hole in strong sound wood. After they were found out, and the hole- 

 breeding character of tlie species was established, it was natural that the subsequent 

 accounts of the cliff and rock nests should be received with caution or mistrust ; and so 

 much has been said one way and another, that it will tend to put the history of the 

 species in the best light to review the testimony on the subject. 



"When in New Mexico, in 1864, I found the Violet-green Swallows to be very 

 common in the Eaton Mountains. This was in June, and I have no doubt that the birds 

 were then nesting, though I had no chance of observing them closely. I noticed their 

 close resemblance to "VVhite-bellied Swallows in general appearance, and particularly in 

 mode of flight ; and I observed then, as subsequently, the curiously misleading circum- 

 stance that the bii-ds appeared to have white rumps. In fact, as is well known, the rump 

 is like the rest of the upper parts in colour, but the fluffy white feathers of the flanks 

 lie over the part during flight, sometimes meeting over the root of the tail, thus causing 

 the appearance observed. This appearance of tricoloration — violet, green, and white — is 

 striding. The following year, at Fort Whipple, in Arizona, I made quite a study of 

 these birds, whose exquisite beauty could hardly fail to touch even the most insensible 

 observer. They nestled in considerable numbers in the pine-woods about the fort, usually 

 preferring the edges of the timber, and constructed their nests of hay and feathers in tlic 

 natural crevices of trees, or in old Woodpecker holes. Sometimes isolated pairs occupied 

 the deciduous trees in the vicinity, as the cotton-woods along the creek and the oal'Cs of 

 the open hillsides ; but most of the birds gathered ia little colonies in clumps of pine- 

 trees. The birds reached this elevated locality the second or third week iu March, and 

 remained until late in September. I considered them the commonest of tlicir tril)(\ quite 

 cliaracteristic, in fact, of the Arizona pine-belt." 



Mr. Bidgway has given the following account of the species as observed l)y liiui iu 

 Nevada in May : — 



"They were very abundant, and frequented chiefly tlu' clilfs of c:ilc:ucous tufa, 

 where they were observed to enter the fissures of the rock to tlieir ricsts w itiiin. In .Inly 

 we saw it again among the limestone walls of the eastern canons of the Buby Mountains, 

 where it also nested in the crevices on tlie face of the clilfs, its associates being the 



