352 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



at night in the low bushes or reeds which cover the marshes. Sometimes 

 tens of thousands gather to pass the night in the same marsh, associated 

 more or less with other species of swallows. On the well-drained uplands 

 where sand banks are very scarce and the soil mostly " hard pan," shale 

 or rock, I have sometimes traveled miles and miles without seeing any 

 of this species. In such localities the Barn swallow and Cliff swallow are 

 the prevailing forms. On the shores of Lake Ontario, in the Genesee 

 valley, in the Hudson valley and on Long Island, the " Sand martin " 

 or Bank swallow is especially abundant. 



Stelgidopteryx serripennis (Audubon) 

 Rough-winged Swallow 



Plate 88 



Hirundo serripennis Audubon. Orn. Biog. 1838. 4 : 593 

 Stelgidopteryx serripennis A. 0. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. p. 295. 

 No. 617 



stelgidopteryx, from Gr., scraper- winged ; serripennis, Lat., saw feathered 



Description. Resembles the Bank swallow, but larger; edge of the wing 

 with sharp recurved hooklets, more easily felt than seen; upper parts grayish 

 brown; throat and breast light brownish gray fading gradually into the white 

 of the abdomen. The decidedly larger size, more brownish upper parts 

 and entire absence of grayish band on the breast contrasted with the pure 

 white throat, easily distinguish this species from the Bank swallow. 



Length 5.5-5.75 inches; extent 12-12. 5; wing 4.12-4.35; tail 2.1; bill 

 .19; tarsus .43. 



Distribution. The Rough-winged swallow breeds from British Colum- 

 bia, Minnesota and Massachusetts southward to the gulf coast; winters 

 in the tropics. In New York it inhabits the river valleys and lake shores 

 of all the southern, central and western portions of the State (see map 

 volume I, page 24), being a fairly common summer resident of the Car- 

 olinian and lower AUeghanian zones. It was apparently unknown to 

 Giraud and DeKay, as well as later naturalists in this part of the country, 

 until about the year 1870, Doctor Mearns reporting it in 1872 from High- 

 land Falls; Rathbun and Wright from Auburn in 1876; Bicknell from 



