407 



THE PURPLE MARTIN. 



Hirundo purpurea, Linn. 



Is said to have been once obtained in Ireland. 



Mr. Yarrell states in his British Birds, that the species is " in- 

 cluded, in consequence of a letter received from Mr. Prederick 

 M f Coy of Dublin, informing me that a female example of the 

 species had been shot near Kingstown, in the county of Dublin, 

 which had been sent for dissection to Dr. Scouler a few hours 

 afterwards, and when preserved was placed in the Museum of the 

 Royal Dublin Society." vol. ii. p. 257, 2nd edit. The date of its 

 occurrence is not mentioned : the communication respecting the 

 bird was published about March, 1840. 



We are further informed by the same author that " during the 

 first week of September, 1842, two other examples of this same 

 species were shot by Mr. John Calvert of Paddington, at the 

 Kingsbury reservoir." One of these is a young bird of the year, 

 with the outside tail-feathers not fully grown, and the other an 

 old male, which circumstance, taken in connection with the fact 

 that two or three days intervened between those on which they 

 were killed, inclines Mr. Yarrell to believe that a brood of them 

 may have been reared there. These additional instances of an 

 American species occurring in the British Islands ; — see observa- 

 tions on Carolina cuckoo, belted kingfisher, American bittern, &c, 

 — and in no more easterly part of Europe, strengthen the opinion 

 that such birds crossed the Atlantic Ocean. 



Audubon, in the first volume of his Ornithological Biography 

 (p. 115), gives a very full and interesting description of the habits 

 &c. of this species. He remarks that, — "the circumstance of 

 their leaving the United States so early in autumn [they leave 

 Boston, &c, about the 20th of August] has inclined me to think 

 that they must go farther from them than any of our migratory 

 land birds," p. 120. He adds in vol. v. p. 408, that "although 

 this beautiful swallow reaches the vicinity of the Arctic Circle 

 earlier than others, it is said to migrate far within the tropics, as, 

 according to Mr. Swainson, it was observed in numbers around 

 Pernambuco 8t° south of the line." 



