BJRDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
77 
Plate XIV. 
HIKUNDO HOKREOEUM, Barton. 
Barn Swallow. 
The Barn Swaelow, the chief of its fellows, is the most widely 
diffused, most generally abundant, and, wherever found, the best known of 
all our species. Eone are more universally or deservedly popular. 
It ranges throughout North America from Florida to Greenland, and 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, breeding, strange to say, over 
nearly the Avhole of this vast territory. 
Such is its attachment to last year’s scenes and associations, that it 
leaves its far-off home in the sunny South rather early, gathering its 
forces from the plains of Brazil, the spicy isles of the Indies, and the 
lofty plateau of Mexico, and wends its graceful flight northwmrd. 
Unlike many of its kin, this familiar little species does not wait until 
the soft mild days of May have visited the earth, but, actuated by an 
overmastering instinct to revisit the land of its nativity, it comes ere the 
dying throes of the winter-demon have ceased to be heard in the Avild 
March Avinds. 
But the more genial fields and streams of our Southern border-states 
first invite its presence, and offer it an abiding-place, until its more 
northern habitats are made to rejoice under the influence of the sun-god. 
In the Central section of this great land of ours, this generally occurs 
during the early days of balmy April, when sjming may be said to com- 
mence in earnest. 
Hundreds of these agile creatures, carried away by the exuberance of 
their feelings, may noAv be seen either disporting themselves in the atmo- 
