Species V. HIE UNDO PELASGIA* 
CHIMNEY SWALLOW. 
[Plate XXXIX. Fig. 1.] 
Lath. Syn. v., p. 583-32. — Catesb. Car. App. t. 8. — Hirondelle de la Caroline, 
Buff, vi., p. 700. — Hirundo Carolinensis, Briss. ii., p. 501, 9. — Aculeated Swal- 
low, Ard. Zool. n., No. 335-18. — Turt. Syst. p. 630. 
This species is peculiarly our own ; and strongly distinguished from 
all the rest of our Swallows by its figure, flight, and manners. Of the 
first of these the representation in the plate will give a correct idea ; 
its other peculiarities shall be detailed as fully as the nature of the 
subject requires. 
This Swallow, like all the rest of its tribe in the United States, is 
migratory, arriving in Pennsylvania late in April or early in May, and 
dispersing themselves over the whole country wherever there are vacant 
chimneys in summer sufficiently high and convenient for their accommo- 
dation. In no other situation with us are they observed at present to 
build. This circumstance naturally suggests the query, Where did these 
birds construct their nests before the arrival of Europeans in this 
country, when there were no such places for their accommodation ? I 
would answer probably in the same situations in which they still con- 
tinue to build in the remote regions of our western forests, where 
European improvements of this kind are scarcely to be found, namely, 
in the hollow of a tree, Avhich in some cases has the nearest resemblance 
to their present choice of any other. One of the first settlers in the 
state of Kentucky informed me, that he cut down a large hollow beech 
tree which contained forty or fifty nests of the Chimney Swallow, most 
of which by the fall of the tree, or by the weather, were lying at the 
bottom of the hollow, but sufficient fragments remained adhering to the 
sides of the tree to enable him to number them. They appeared, he 
said, to be of many years' standing. The present site which they have 
chosen must however hold out many more advantages than the former, 
since we see that in the whole thickly settled parts of the United States 
these birds have uniformly adopted this new convenience ; not a single 
pair being observed to prefer the woods. Security from birds of prey 
and other animals — from storms that frequently overthrow the timber, 
* Linn. Syst. i., p. 345. — Gmel. Syst. I., p. 1023. — Lath. Lid. Orn. n., p. 581. 
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