HIRUNDINID.E. 331 



[118.] 5. Hirundo purpurea. (Linn.) Purple Martin. 



Family, Hirundinidae ; Sub-family, Hirundinae, Swains. Genus, Hirundo, Linn. 



Great American Martin. Edwards, pi. 120 ; female. 



Purple Swift. Penn. Arct. Zool., ii., p. 431, No. 333. 



Purple Martin (H. purpurea). Wils., v., p, 58, pi. 39, f. 1, 2. 



Hirundo coerulea (since H. versicolor). Vieil. Ois. de V Am., pi. 26, 27- 



Hirundo purpurea. Sab. Frankl. Journ.,y. 6'78. Bonap. Syn., No. 71- 



Sashun-peeshew. Cree Indians. 



This large-sized, bold, and active Swallow is well known throughout the whole 

 of North America. Though it arrives within the Arctic circle earlier than the 

 others of its tribe, and is absent from the United States only for a short period in 

 the middle of winter, it migrates far within the tropics. Mr. Swainson observed 

 it in numbers round Pernambuco, eight degrees and a half south of the line. 

 Mr. Audubon informs us that it arrives at New Orleans from the southward on 

 the 28th of January ; and Wilson states that it reaches Georgia late in February, 

 and Pennsylvania about the 1st of April. It makes its first appearance at Great 

 Bear Lake on the 17th of May, at which time the snow still partially covers the 

 ground, and the rivers and lakes are fast bound in ice. In the middle of August 

 it retires with its young brood from the fur-countries; and within a few days 

 after that period it begins also to quit Pennsylvania. In the United States, and 

 in many Indian villages, boxes or excavated gourds are hung up for the Purple 

 Martin to breed in. It preys chiefly on the larger winged insects, such as wasps, 

 bees, and beetles. — R. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Colour, pure and glossy violet-purple ; quills, greater coverts, and tail pitch-black, faintly 

 reflecting purple. Lores velvet-black. Bill and legs pitch-black. — A female, killed 25th 

 June, on the Saskatchewan, has the upper plumage blackish-brown, merely glossed with 

 violet-purple ; forehead hair-brown, with grey edgings ; throat and breast clove-brown, 

 fringed with greyish-white. Under plumage white, with a few scattered hair-brown spots. 

 A few of the interscapulars have the deep violet colour of the male, as if the plumage had 

 been in a state of change when the bird was killed*. — R. 



Form aberrant. The bill is stronger, higher, and the culmen more curved than in the 

 typical Swallows ; the commissure also makes a bold curve from the rictus ; and the margins 

 of both mandibles are considerably inflexed in the middle, but at the base the upper one is 

 dilated, and folds over the lower one much in the same manner as is seen in Colaris. The 



* It corresponds with Edwards's figure above quoted, which was brought from Severn River by Mr. Isham. 



