356 VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOW. 
with light paddles, used in propelling their canoes.” In another place, Audubon prints 
a note from Bachman, who states that on the 16th of October, 1833, in company with 
Dr. Wilson and Mr. J. W. Audubon, he “saw such an immense quantity of this species 
of birds that the air was positively darkened. As far as the eye could reach, there were 
Swallows crowded thickly together, and winging their way southward; there must 
have been many millions!” 
Mr. Maynard found the crops and stomachs filled with the aromatic wax-myrtle 
berries. These berries, which are known in the East also as bay-berries, are about the 
size of black pepper, and are coated with a waxy substance, of which the bay-berry 
tallow is made. This was formerly used for manufacturing candles. This substance 
seems to be highly nutritious, as the birds becqgme very fat from feeding upon it. 
The great mass of White-bellied Swallows depart early in September. In the first 
week of that month I have seen thousands of them in south-western Missouri, and only 
a few days later I observed them in still larger numbers on Galveston Bay in south- 
eastern Texas. 
NAMES: TREE SwALLow, White-bellied Swallow, River Swallow, Wood Swallow, Green-blue Swallow, 
Black-and-white Swallow. — Waldschwalbe (German). 
SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Wirundo bicolor Vieill. (1807). -Herse bicolor Bonap. (1850). TACHYCINETA 
BICOLOR Cab. (1850). Hirundo viridis Wils. (1802). Iridoprocne bicolor Coues. 
DESCRIPTION: ‘“‘Adult male: Above, rich burnished steel-blue (varying much in shade), the larger wing- 
feathers and tail blackish, faintly glossed with dull greenish; lores, deep black; entire lower parts 
purée white. Adult female: Usually duller above than mate, but often indistinguishable. 
“Length, 5.00 to 6.25 inches; wing about 4.50 to 4.80; tail, 2.30 to 2.50 inches acutely 
emarginate.”” (R. Ridgway, ‘Manual of North American Birds,” p. £61.) 
VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOW. 
Tachycineta thalassina CABANIS. 
q HIS BEAUTIFUL Swallow is confined to the western part of our country, north 
9 to the border of the United States, which may be considered its limit of distribu- 
tion in this direction. ‘The Great Plains seem to present an impassable barrier to the 
eastward dispersion of.even so excellent a flyer as this; but it does come a little beyond 
even the foot-hills of the Rockies. Thus, on the 26th of June, 1874, being then on the 
Upper Missouri, above the mouth of the Yellowstone, near the Quaking Ash River, I 
observed a few individuals. ... 
“In general terms, as far as the United States is concerned, the Violet-green 
inhabits wooded regions from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, spreading over all 
our territory during March; it is liable to be found breeding wherever suitable trees 
occur, but, like other Swallows, is more or less locally distributed. During September 
it retires southward, probably none wintering amongst us. It is resident in Mexico, 
