of man are few and far between, it inhabits eaves, particularly in the limestone
rocks; and it also frequents the outhouses at the trading-posts. When Fort
Franklin was erected, on the shores of Great Bear Lake, in the autumn of 1825,
we found many of its nests in the ruins of a house that had been abandoned for
more than ten years. Towards the end of the following May, the birds themselves
made their appearance, and immediately commenced a survey of the
different buildings; but the storehouses having been repaired, without any reference
to the poor Swallows, they found no entrance; and after lingering about
their old haunts for a week, they flew off in search of other quarters. At Fort
Chepewyan, lat. 57°, the Bam Swallows have regularly, about the 15th of May,
for a number of years, taken possession of their nests of mud and straw, constructed
within an outhouse, and we observed numbers of them in the same month
at Fort Good Hope (in lat. 67J°), the most northerly post in America. The eggs
are marked with~spots and minute streaks of yellowish-brown on a white ground.
After rearing a single brood, they quit these high latitudes early in August, the
supply of food then becoming precarious; and about the middle of that month
they begin to prepare for their departure, even from Pennsylvania, though they
do not entirely disappear till the middle of September. Their arrival in Pennsylvania
being nearly two months earlier than within the Arctic circle, they are
enabled to rear two broods.
DESCRIPTION'
Of a male, killed at Fort Chepewyan in Jane, 1827»
Colour.—Forehead, throat, and upper part of the breast pale chestnut; rest of the under
plumage yellowish-brown. Top of the head and neck, dorsal plumage, lesser coverts, and
sides of the breast, deeply glossed with violet-purple ; the base of the plumage of these parts
being grey, the middle greyish-white, and pitch-black next the purple tips. Quills, greater
coverts, and tail blackish-brown, with dark green reflexions: all the tail feathers but the
central pair having a large white spot on the middle of their inner webs. Bill black. Irides
dark brown. Legs blackish-purple.
Form typical. Bill rather weaker and more depressed than that of H. lunifrons. Tail
deeply forked; the lateral pair of feathers prolonged.
and a half tong (French measure ?) ; ours is folly seven: the front is whitish (fe front blanch&tre); ours is very deep
rufous. But the most remarkable difference between the two birds is in the construction of their nests: the Cayenne
bird building one without mud, and so long as sometimes to measure a foot and a half, with an opening near the bottom—
the Americana of Wilson, on the contrary, using a good deal of mud; the length is only seven inches, and the
opening at top, with an external rim, for the parents occasionally to sit upon. (See Wilson, v., p. 40, and Sonnini’s
Buffon, xix., p. 35.) Until this matter is further investigated, we cannot suppose that individuals of the same species
would, in different countries, build their nests in such very dissimilar ways.—Sw.
The female has the under plumage paler, the purple of the back less vivid, and the exterior
tail feathers a quarter of an inch shorter.
Inch.
Length, total . . >7
j ■ of tail' . • 3
„ of tail in middle . 2
• ,', of wing . • 4
Dimensions.
Lin. 3 Length of bill above .
6 ,, of bill to rictus .
0 „ of tarsus .
8 of middle toe .
Inch. Lin. , o 3 Length of middle nail
0 7$ „ of hind toe
0 6 ,, of its nail
. 0 5
Inch. Lin.
. 0 2&
. 00 23£
R.
[116.] 3. H i r u n d o l u n i f r o n s . (Say.|‘ White-fronted or Cliff Swallow.
Ge n u s , Hirundo, L in n . . . a Cliff Swallow {Hirundo lunifrons). Say, Long's Exp., ii., PP- 235, 349 (Am. Ld., p. 47>
Hirundo fulva. B onap. Syn., No. 73; Orn., i., p. 63, pi. 7, f- !?*
This species was discovered in 1820, by Major Long, near the Rocky Mountains]
where it abounds. In the same year it was seen in great numbers by Sir
John Franklin’s party, on the journey from Cumberland House to Fort Enterprise,
and on the banks of Point Lake, in latitude 65°, where its earliest arrival was
noted, in the following year, to be the 12th of June. Its clustered nests are of
frequent occurrence on the faces of the rocky cliffs of the Barren Grounds, and
they are not uncommon throughout the whole course of the Slave and Mackenzie
Rivers. On the 25th of June, in the year 1825, a number of them made their
first appearance at Fort Chepewyan, and built their nests under the eaves of the
dwelling-house, which are about six feet above a balcony, that extends the whole
length of the building, and is a frequented promenade. They had thus to graze
the heads of the passengers on entering their nests, and were moreover exposed
to the curiosity and depredations of the children, to whom they were novelties;
yet they preferred the dwelling-house to the more lofty eaves of the storehouses,
and in the following season returned with augmented numbers to the same spot.
Fort Chepewyan has existed for many years, and trading-posts, though far distant
from each other, have been established in the fur-countries for a century and a
half; yet this, as far as I could learn, is the first instance of this species of
Swallow placing itself under the protection of man within the widely extended
» We consider the Hirun io fulva of M. Vieillot (Ois. d e l Am., pi. 32) as distinct from the lmdfrms of M. Say. In
the list the front is invariably snow-white, while the latter is described as having this part reddish-brown <Jmm rouge-
dtre\ and the breast yellowish ; in both, however, the tail is slightly forked. A third species, rnr H. melanogaster
(Syn. of Meat. Birds, No. 5), differs from both, in having the front, and also the throat, deep and bright rufous.—Sw.