FULVOUS OR CLIFF SWALLOW. 219 
the breast is of a pale rufous ash colour, and the remaining 
under parts are whitish, tinged with brownish ferruginous ; 
the wings and tail are blackish, the small wing-coverts being 
glossed with violaceous; the inferior wing-coverts are ashy 
brown ; the tail is nearly entire, somewhat shorter than the 
tips of the wings; the exterior tail-feather is slightly edged 
with whitish on the inner vane; the wing and tail-feathers 
have their shafts black above and white beneath. 
This description is taken from our finest male, which is also 
represented in the plate ; no difference exists between the sexes, 
and the young, even during early age, can scarcely be distin- 
guished from the parents, except by having the front white, in- 
stead of rufous. We are informed by Vieillot that some indi- 
viduals have all the inferior surface of the body tinged with 
the same colour as that of the throat: these are probably very 
old males. 
A very singular trait distinguishes the migrations of this 
bird. While the European, or white variety of the human 
race, is rapidly spreading over this continent, from its eastern 
borders to the remotest plains beyond the Mississippi, the cliff 
swallow advances from the extreme western regions, annually 
invading a new territory farther to the eastward, and induces 
us to conclude, that a few more summers will find it sporting 
in this immediate vicinity, and familiarly established along the 
Atlantic shores. 
Like all other North American swallows, this species passes 
the winter in tropical America, whence in the spring it mi- 
grates northward for the purpose of breeding. It appears to 
be merely a spring passenger in the West Indies, remaining 
there but a few days according to Vieillot, who, not seeing any 
in the United States, and observing some while at sea, in 
August, in the latitude of Nova Scotia, supposed that they pro- 
pagated in a still more northern region. As we have not re- 
ceived any account of their inhabiting the well-explored coun- 
tries around Hudson’s Bay, we are led to the conclusion that 
the western wilds of the United States have hitherto been their 
