407 
THE PURPLE MARTIN. 
Hirundo purpurea, Linn. 
Is said to have been once obtained in Ireland. 
Mr. Yakrell states in his British Birds, that the species is “ in- 
cluded, in consequence of a letter received from Mr. Erederick 
M'Coy of Dublin, informing me that a female example of the 
species had been shot near Kingstown, in the county of Dublin, 
which had been sent for dissection to Dr. Scouler a few hours 
afterwards, and when preserved was placed in the Museum of the 
Royal Dublin Society.” vol. ii. p. 257, 2nd edit. The date of its 
occurrence is not mentioned : the communication respecting the 
bird was published about March, 1840. 
We are further informed by the same author that “ during the 
first week of September, 1842, two other examples of this same 
species were shot by Mr. John Calvert of Paddington, at the 
Kingsbury reservoir.” One of these is a young bird of the year, 
with the outside tail-feathers not fully grown, and the other an 
old male, which circumstance, taken in connection with the fact 
that two or three days intervened between those on which they 
were killed, inclines Mr. Yarrell to believe that a brood of them 
may have been reared there. These additional instances of an 
American species occurring in the British Islands ; — see observa- 
tions on Carolina cuckoo, belted kingfisher, American bittern, &c., 
— and in no more easterly part of Europe, strengthen the opinion 
that such birds crossed the Atlantic Ocean. 
Audubon, in the first volume of his Ornithological Biography 
(p. 115), gives a very full and interesting description of the habits 
&c. of this species. He remarks that, — “the circumstance of 
their leaving the United, States so early in autumn [they leave 
Boston, &c., about the 20th of August] has inclined me to think 
that they must go farther from them than any of our migratory 
land birds,” p. 120. He adds in vol. v. p. 408, that “although 
this beautiful swallow reaches the vicinity of the Arctic Circle 
earlier than others, it is said to migrate far within the tropics, as, 
according to Mr. Swainson, it was observed in numbers around 
Pernambuco 8i° south of the line.” 
