428 HISTORY OF THE CRESCENT SWALLOAV 



whitening on the belly, the under tail-coverts gray, ■whitish-edged and 

 tinged with rnfoas. Wings and tail blackish, with f lightglosa. Bill black; 

 feet brown. Length, 5-5 J ; extent, 12 or more ; wing, 4^-4^ ; tail, 2J, nearly 

 square. 



The sexes are not distinguishable. Both vary much in the tone of color- 

 ation, especially of the rufous parts, though the pattern is much the same. 

 The forehead is sometime^! white, sometimes quite brown. In young birds, 

 the frontlet may be altogether wanting ; the upper parts are lustreless dark 

 brown, most of the feathers being skirted with whitish ; the rufous of the 

 throat and rump a mere tinge, the spot on the throat wanting, and the 

 parts often speckled with white. 



DISCOVERY of this notable Swallow, commonly attributed 

 to Say, was made long before Long's expedition to the 

 Eocky Mountains, though the species was first named in the 

 book which treats of that interesting journey. The bird may 

 have been discovered by the celebrated John Eeinhold Porster ; 

 at any rate, the earliest note I have in hand respecting the Cliflf 

 Swallow is Forster's, dating 1772, when this naturalist pub- 

 lished in the Philosophical Transactions "An Account of the 

 Birds sent from Hudson's Bay ; with Observations relative to 

 their Natural History; and Latin Descriptions of some of the 

 most uncommon" — a rather noted paper, in which seven new 

 species, viz, Falco spadiceus, Strix nebulosa, Emberiza [i. e. 

 Zonotrichia] leucophrys, Fringilla [i. e. Junco] hudsonias, Mus- 

 cicapa [i. <■■. Dendrwca] striata, Parus hudsonicus, and Scolopax 

 [i. e. Numenias] borealis, are described, with references to various 

 other new birds by number, such as " Turdus no. 22", which is 

 Scolecophagus ferrugineus, and ^^Hirundo no. 35", which is 

 Petroclielidon lunifrons. The next observer — in fact, a redis- 

 coverer — was, perhaps, Audubon, who says that he saw Republi- 

 can or Cliff Swallows for the first time in 1815 at Henderson, 

 on the Ohio ; that he drew up a description at the time, nam- 

 ing the species Hirnndo republicana [sic] ; and that he again 

 saw the same bird in 1819 at Newport, Ky., where they usually 

 appeared about the 10th of April, and had that year finished 

 about fifty nests by the 20th of the same month. The next 

 year, namely, 1820, Major Long and Sir John Franklin found 

 these birds again, in widely remote regions, — the first named 

 during his expedition to the Eocky Mountains, and the latter 

 on the journey from Cumberland House to Fort Enterprise, 

 and on the banks of Point Lake, in latitude 65°, where its 

 earliest arrival was noted the following year on the 12th of 

 June. Dr. Elchardson says that their clustered nests are of 



