throughout our journey wherever there were steep cliffs or rocks. I took eggs near 

 Tonaho Point on the 30th of December. They had all left Chupat by the 1st of March." 

 It was " pretty common about the Tosca cliff, up the Chupat valley, in the crevices 

 of the rocks in which thev were "breeding. The male is uniform glossy steel-blue, and 

 easily distinguishable from the female, whose underparts are speckled with grey, lightest 

 about the vent. Both sexes uttered harsh screams whilst we were sitting under the 

 cliff. A few seen at Ninfas Point." Although he spoke of the species as Progne pur- 

 purea, we know by a specimen from the Chupat valley in the British Museum, collected 

 by Mr. Durnfoi'd on the 9th of November, 1875, that the species is really P. f areata. 



Mr. Barrows gives the following note : — 



" Specimens were taken at Bahia Blanca, where the birds were abundant, and they 

 were frequently seen in the Sierra de la Ventana. While at Carhue and Puan (March 

 21st to April 9th, 1881) none were seen, but the weather was so cold that doubtless they 

 had gone north. At Concepcion this species was never observed." 



The following is Mr. W. Ft. Hudson's account (Arg. Orn.) of the species : — 



" This Purple Martin is occasionally seen in the eastern provinces of La Plata when 

 migrating, but has not been found nesting anywhere so far north as Buenos Ayres. I 

 met with it breeding at Bahia Blanca on the Atlantic coast, and on the Rio Negro, 

 where it is very common. It arrives in Patagonia late in September, and leaves before 

 the middle of February. On the 14th of that month I saw one flock flying north, but 

 it was the last. It breeds in holes under the eaves of houses or in walls, and its nest 

 is like that of P. chahjbea ; but many also breed in holes in the steep banks of the Bio 

 Negro. They do not, however, excavate holes for themselves, but take possession of 

 natural crevices and old forsaken burrows of the Burrowing Parrot (Conurus patachoni- 

 cus). In size, flight, manners, and appearance the Purple Martin closely resembles 

 Progne chalybea, the only difference being in the dark plumage of the under surface. 

 The language of the two birds is also identical ; the loud excited scream when the nest 

 is approached, the various other notes when the birds sweep about in the air, and the 

 agreeably modulated and leisurely-uttered song are all possessed by the two species 

 without the slightest difference in strength or intonation. This circumstance appears 

 very remarkable to me, because, though two species do sometimes possess a few notes 

 alike, the greater part of their language is generally different ; also because birds of the 

 same species in different localities vary more in language than in any other particular. 

 This last observation, however, applies more to resident than to migratory species." 



The notes on P. purpurea given by Mr. Durnford (' Ibis,' 1877, p. 168) and Mr. 

 Gibson ('Ibis,' 1880, p. 22), in which they speak of that species as nesting near Buenos 

 Ayres, must belong to P. domestica. In the ' Catalogue of Birds ' they have been 

 placed under the heading of the present species, and this is probably a mistake. 



The specimen which the late Mr. White stated that he had obtained at Fuerte de 

 Andalgala, Catamarca, on the 28th of September, 1880, determined by Dr. Sclater as 



2C2 



