BARN SWALLOW. 225 



the liberty of considering the present as a separate and distinct 

 species. 



The Barn Swallow arrives in this part of Pennsylvania from the south 

 on the last week in March, or the first week in April, and passes on to the 

 north as far, at least, as the river St. Lawrence. On the east side of 

 ihe great range of the Alleghany, they are dispersed very generally 

 over the country, wherever there are habitations, even to the summit of 

 high mountains ; but, on account of the greater coldness of such situa- 

 tions, are usually a week or two later in making their appearance there. 

 On the 16th of May, being on a shooting expedition on the top of 

 Pocono Mountain, Northampton, when the ice on that and on several 

 successive mornings was more than a quarter of an inch thick, I ob- 

 served with surprise a pair of these Swallows which had taken up their 

 abode on a miserable cabin there. It was then about sunrise, the ground 

 white with hoar frost, and the male was twittering on the roof by the 

 side of his mate with great sprightliness. The man of the house told 

 me that a single pair came regularly there every season, and built their 

 nest on a projecting beam under the eaves, about six or seven feet from 

 the ground. At the bottom of the mountain, in a large barn belonging 

 to the tavern there, I counted upwards of twenty nests, all seemingly 

 occupied. In the woods they are never met with ; but as you approach 

 a farm they soon catch the eye, cutting their gambols in the air. 

 Scarcely a barn, to which these birds can find access, is without them ; 

 and as public feeling is universally in their favor, they are seldom or 

 never disturbed. The proprietor of the barn last mentioned, a German, 

 assured me, that if a man permitted the Swallows to be shot his cows 

 would give bloody milk, and also that no barn where Swallows fre- 

 quented would ever be struck with lightning ; and I nodded assent. 

 When the tenets of superstition " lean to the side of humanity" one can 

 readily respect them. On the west side of the Alleghany these birds 

 become more rare. In travelling through the states of Kentucky and 

 Tennessee, from Lexington to the Tennessee river, in the months of 

 April and May, I did not see a single individual of this species ; though 

 the Purple Martin, and, in some places, the Bank Swallow was nu- 

 merous. 



Early in May they begin to build. From the size and structure of 

 the nest it is nearly a week before it is completely finished. One of these 

 nests, taken on the 21st of June from the rafter to which it was closely at- 

 tached, is now lying before me. It is in the form of an inverted cone with 

 a perpendicular section cut ofi"on that side by which it adhered to the wood. 

 At the top it has an extension of the edge, or offset, for the male or female 

 to sit on occasionally, as appeared by the dung ; the upper diameter was 

 about six inches by five, the height externally seven inches. This shell 

 is formed of mud, mixed with fine hay, as plasterers do their mortar with 



Vol. II.— 15 



