132 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



corresponds with the description of Margravius' andorinha, which he considers a full 

 confirmation of his hypothesis. The European swallows probably retire to Africa. Adan- 

 son, wheu within fifty leagues of Senegal, caught, from the shrouds of the vessel, four 

 European swallows. This was on the 2d of October, 1749, and they were then re- 

 tiring from the approach of winter to Senegal, in the torrid zone, where they are never 

 seen but at this season of the year, along with wagtails, kites, quails, and other birds of 

 passage, and they only spend the winter, without building nests, or producing young. 

 Our chimney swallow is not known in Europe. And our hirundo rustica is not precise- 

 ly like that of Europe ; it disagrees particularly iu the colour of the breast, which, in the 

 latter, is white, like that of our bank swallow, whereas ours is ferruginous. Kalm says, 

 that they nearly correspond in colour, but that there appears a small difference in the 

 note ; they are, probably, varieties of the same species. Dr. Barton thinks that our 

 bank martin, or land swallow, is not the hirundo riparia of L innseus. Kalm, in his 

 voyage to this country, saw, on the first of September, about one thousand miles from 

 our coast, some land birds flying about the ship, which he took for sand martins, (hirundo 

 riparia ;) sometimes they settled on the ship, or on the sails ; they were of a grayish brown 

 colour on their back, their breast white, and the tail somewhat furcated. They were 

 driven away by a heavy shower of rain. On the next day a swallow fluttered about the 

 ship, and sometimes settled on the mast, and several times it approached the cabin 

 windows, as if willing to take shelter there. Eight days afterward, within the American 

 Gulf, an owl and a little bird settled on the sails. On the 12th of September, a wood- 

 pecker of a speckled gray colour on the back, extremely fatigued, and another land bird, 

 of the passerine class, endeavoured to rest on the ship. Kalm's destination was Philadel- 

 phia, (where he arrived on the 26 th of September,) and from the 25th of August, to the 

 beginning of September, the swallows retire from that part of the country. If those 

 seen by Kalm were not driven by storms from their course, they evidently intended to 

 take up their winter residence beyond sea. Catesby says, that on his voyage from En- 

 gland to Carolina, (where he arrived on the 23d of May, 1 722,) in the latitude of twenty- 

 six degrees north, about midway between the two continents of Africa and America, 

 which he says cannot be less than six hundred leagues, an owl appeared hovering over the 

 Bhip, and after some attempts to rest flew off; this was on the 22d of March : on that day 

 a hawk with a white head, breast, and belly, appeared in like manner, and the day after 

 some swallows, but none ventured to alight on any part of the ship. This was about the 

 time of year when swallows return from their winter migrations, and those were, probably, 

 returning to Carolina. Kalm met them going to Africa in the fall, when they leave us, 

 and Catesby met them returning in the spring, when they join us. 



