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Auk, XII, Oct. ,1895, Jff- 3 JZ, 
The Rough-winged Swallow ( Stelgidopteryx serripennis ) breeding in 
North Adams, Berkshire Co., Mass. — Several years ago I noticed a pair 
of birds that resembled Bank Swallows flying about a limestone cliff in 
North Adams. The nature of the place led me to suspect these birds 
were Rough-winged Swallows, but I was unable to pursue the subject 
further that summer. This year, on the 28th of June, I found two Swal- 
lows skimming over the surface of a small sheet of water near the above- 
mentioned cliff and quickly satisfied myself, with the aid of opera-glasses, 
that they were Rough-wings. It soon appeared that they were engaged 
in feeding their young, which were enscounced within a narrow, inaces- 
sible crevice near the summit of the neighboring cliff, about fifty feet 
from its base. The old birds would pass entirely out of sight within the 
crevice ; the young were invisible. But on the morning of July 2, when 
I again visited the place, four or five young birds nearly ready to fly were 
sitting in a row at the mouth of the crevice, while their parents, resting 
from their labors, basked in the warm morning sun or otherwise disported 
themselves after the fashion of their tribe. I shot the male, July 2 ; the 
young left the nest, July 3. 
The Rough-winged Swallow has never before been known to breed in 
Massachusetts. Indeed, the only previous notice of its occurrence in the 
State relates to a single specimen killed in Easthampton by W. S. Clark 
in May, 1851, as recorded by H. L. Clark in ‘The Birds of Amherst and 
Vicinity,’ 1887, p. 49. A single specimen was captured in Suffield, Conn., 
June 6, 1874 (Bull. Nuttall Ornithol. Club, II, 1877, 21) and another in 
East Hartford, Conn., in June, 1885 (Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., I, 1886, 
267). It is known to breed in southwestern Connecticut near Bridge- 
port (B. N. O. C., IV, 1879, 1 19) and Stamford (Auk, XII, 1895, 86), 
near the eastern end of Long Island at Shelter Island (Auk, X, 1893, 
369), and in the lower part of the Hudson River Valley as far north as 
West Point, N. Y. (B. N. O. C., Ill, 1876, 46). The North Adams locality 
is only about three miles from the southern boundary of Vermont. — • 
Walter Faxon, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass. 
