444 THE GENUS PROGNE 



of Cooper's statement. He noticed Eough- wings several times 

 in suspicious proximity to some dead stubs ; and though he 

 never saw one entering the cavities, he thought it probable 

 that the birds sometimes availed themselves of such retreats 

 in the absence of banks suitable for excavation. 



The general presence and behavior of our Swallows is so 

 little varied, as well as so familiar, that nothing need be said 

 on this score ; the Eough- wing resembles the Bank Swallow 

 in these respects as closely as it does in coloration and phy- 

 sique. The eggs, as in all our species excepting the Barn and 

 the Cliff, are immaculate white, and about as large as the Bank 

 Swallow's, measuring about 0.75 in length by a trifle over 0.50 

 in breadth ; they are said to be rather more uniformly oblong 

 and pointed than those of the species just named, and com- 

 monly five or six in number. 



I may conclude by referring to a note which I published 

 not long since, on a supposed change of habit of the Bank 

 Swallow, but which proves to have really been based on the 

 present species instead. As recorded in Am. Nat. x. June, 

 1876, 372, under head of " Notable Change of Habit of the 

 Bank Swallow", I was informed by Dr. Kufus Haymond that a 

 Bank Swallow had nested in a building in Brookville, Indiana. 

 Mr. Eidgway fairly questioned, in the August number of the 

 same periodical, p. 493, whether the species was not the Eough- 

 winged, which breeds exactly as Dr. Haymond described, and 

 as the two species are so similar as to be confounded some- 

 times, even by good observers. Dr. Haymond shortly sent me 

 a second communication to the same effect, which I published 

 in the Bulletin of the Nuttall Club, vol. i. n. 4, Nov. 1876, p. 96. 

 In this other instance, "a weather-board had become de- 

 tached from the building, leaving a small opening, in which I 

 watched for two days a Bank Swallow building a nest." Since 

 then, however, he informed me by letter, in answer to my 

 further enquiries, that Mr. Eidgway was right in supposing 

 that the birds were really Eough-wings,and not Bank Swallows. 



Genus FROQNE Boie 



HiTundp, p. ofAuthori. 

 Progne, Boie, Isis, 1826. 

 Procne, Des Murs, " 1852 ". 



Of large size and robust form for this family. Bill long and 

 stout, with much-curved commissure and deflected tip; culmen 

 convex, its tomial edge concave convex, like "t^^ . Nostrils cir- 



