60 
RURAL HOURS. 
barn-yard, Ave asked a boy if there were any martins there. 
“ Martins ?” he inquired, looking puzzled. “ No, marm ; I never 
heard tell of such birds hereabouts.” The same question Avas 
very often asked, and only, in two or three instances, received a 
different ansAver; some elderly persons replying that formerly 
there certainly were martins here. At length, hoAvever, Ave dis- 
covered a few, found their abode, and observed them coming and 
ffoinir, and a little later, Ave saAv others on a farm about two miles 
from the Aollage ; still, their numbers must be A^ery small Avhen 
compared with the other varieties which e\mrybody knows, and 
which are almost constantly in sight through the Avarm Aveather. 
It is possible that the flock may have been diminished, of late 
years, by some accidental cause ; but such, at least, is the state 
of things just noAV. 
The pretty little bank-swalloAV, another very common and nu- 
merous tribe, is entirely a stranger here, though found on the 
banks of lakes and rivers at no great distance ; we have seen 
them, indeed, in large flocks, among the sand-hills near the Sus- 
quehanna, just beyond the southern borders of the county. This 
is the only swalloAV common to both hemispheres, and it is of this 
bird that M. de Chateaubriand remarks .he had found it every- 
where, in all his wanderings OA'er Asia, Africa, Europe, and 
America. 
That the cliff-swallow should also be a stranger here, is not at 
all remarkable ; a few years since, there were none east of the 
hlississippi. In 1824, a single pair first appeared Avithin the 
limits of New York, at a tavern near Whitehall, a short distance 
from Lake Champlain ; shortly after Gov. De Witt Clinton intro- 
duced them to the Avorld at large by writing a notice of them ; 
