454 



NOKTH AMERICAN FAUNA. 



[NO. 27. 



across Great Slave Lake to Fort Rae I noted a number, July 24, nestr 

 ing on the same cliff where I found them in 1901, and I saw a nest in 

 an unfinished Indian cabin about 40 miles south of Trout Rock on the 

 same date. During my trip northward from Fort Rae I found the 

 species rather common along lower Grandin River, August 1 to 3, 

 evidently nesting on the cliffs which in places border the stream. 

 Several were seen also about some Indian houses on Lake Faber, 

 August 7. 



In 1904 I noted the species only near the mouth of Nahanni River, 

 where I saw two on June 3. 



Franklin noted the arrival of the barn swallow at Fort Chipewyan, 

 May 20, 1827." Richardson's observations furnish an early instance 

 of the readiness of the bird to avail itself of artificial nesting sites, 

 even in the far north. He says : 



lu the fur countries, where the habitations of man are few and far between, 

 it inhabits caves, particularly in the limestone rocks; and it also frequents 

 the outhouses at the trading posts. When Fort Franklin was erected, on the 

 shores of Great Bear Lake, in the autumn of 1S25, we found many of its nests 

 in the ruins of a house that had been abandoned for more than ten years. 

 Toward the end of the following May the birds themselves made their appear- 

 ance, and immediately commenced a survey of the different buildings ; but the 

 storehouses having been repaired, without any reference to the poor swallows, 

 they found no entrance; and after lingering about their old haunts for a week, 

 they flew off in search of other quarters. At Fort Chipewyan, lat. 57°, the 

 Barn Swallows have regularly about the 15th of May, for a number of years, 

 taken possession of their nests of mud and straw, constructed within an out- 

 house, and we observed numbers of them in the same month at [old] Fort Good 

 Hope (in lat. 671°), the most northerly post in America.^ 



Baird recorded specimens, wdiich are still in the National Museum, 

 from Fort Rae;^ and the bird catalogue records one from Fort Simp- 

 son. Macoun states that Spreadborough found this bird common 

 from Edmonton to Yellowhead Pass in June, 1898, and observed two 

 at the head of Lesser Slave Lake in June, 1903. Seton observed the 

 bird about cliffs near the north shore of Great Slave Lake near longi- 

 tude 112° 20' in the summer of 1907.^ 



A nest which contained six eggs, collected by J. Lockhart at Gros 

 Cape, Great Slave Lake (near the spot where we found the bird nest- 

 ing), in June, 1864, is in the National Museum. It is very similar in 

 construction to the nest taken by us, and has the appearance of having 

 been built on the face of a cliff. 



Narrative Second Expedition to Polar Sea, p. 307, 1828. 

 ^ Fauna Boreali-Americana, II, pp. 329, 330, 1831. 

 c Rev. Am. Birds, p. 296, May, 1865. 

 ^ Cat. Canadian Birds, Part III, p. 543, 1904. 

 ^Auk, XXV, p. 73, 1908. 



