58 



PURPLE MARTIN. 

 HIRUNDO PURPUREA, 

 [Plate XXXIX.— Fig. 1, Male.—Yig. % Female.'] 



Lath. Syn, IV, p. 574>. 21. Ibid. IV, p, 575. 23.— Catesb. Car. I, 51.— ./^r/:??. ZooL II, 

 No. 333. — Hirondeile hleue de la Caroline, Buff. VI, />. 674. PL enl. 722. — Le Martinet 

 couleur de poupre^ Buff. VI, p. 676. — Turt. Syst. 629. — Edw. 120. — Hirundo subis, 

 Lath. IV, j&. 575 — 24. — Peale's Museum, No. 7645, 7646. 



THIS well known bird is a general inhabitant of the United 

 States, and a particular favorite wherever he takes up his abode. I 

 never met with more than one man who disliked the Martins and 

 would not permit them to settle about his house. This was a penu- 

 rious close-fisted German, who hated them because as he said ^'they 

 eat his peas.^^ I told him he must certainly be mistaken, as I never 

 knew an instance of Martins eating /j^a^; but he replied with cool- 

 ness that he had many times seen them himself "blaying near the 

 hife, and going schnip, schnap,'^ by which I understood that it was 

 his bees that had been the sufferers; and the charge could not be 

 denied. 



This sociable and half domesticated bird arrives in the south- 

 ern frontiers of the United States late in February or early in 

 March ; reaches Pennsylvania about the first of April, and extends 

 his migrations as far north as the country round Hudson's Bay, 

 where he is first seen in May, and disappears in August; so, ac- 

 cording to the doctrine of torpidity, has consequently a pretty long 

 annual nap in those frozen regions, of eight or nine months, under 

 the ice ! We, however, choose to consider him as advancing north- 

 erly with the gradual approach of spring, and retiring with his 



