LAND BIRDS. 545 



niay return again. During prolonged rainy si)ells the mud nests are 

 likely to become loosened from the boards to which they are attached and 

 not infrequently a hundred nests fall to the ground within a few days. 

 After such a catastrophe the owners are very likely to seek a new nesting 

 place. Ordinarily the nest is nearly globular, the entrance being a round 

 hole at or a little below the middle, the nest itself consisting mainly of 

 rounded pellets of mud mixed with very little fibrous material, sometimes 

 with a few straws and grass roots. The typical nest is flask-shaped or 

 retort shaped, the entrance being through a cylindrical or tubular neck, 

 often three or four inches in length. Sometimes these nests are placed 

 side by side and so close as to adhere firmly together, but often little inter- 

 vals are left and here little platforms of mud are built where the old birds 

 or the young may rest if so disposed. 



The food of this species does not differ noticeal)ly from that of the other 

 swallows, although it has not been observed so frequently feeding on bay- 

 berries as some of the others. Its usual food consists entirely of insects 

 taken on the wing. These are largely two- winged (dipterous) insects, 

 but immense quantities of beetles and neuropteroid insects are also taken. 



The Cliff Swallow arrives from the south at al^out the same time as the 

 Barn Swallow, that is from the middle of April to the 10th of May, accord- 

 ing to latitude, and moves southward again during the latter half of August, 

 the last usually disappearing soon after the first of September, We have 

 i-ecords of fresh eggs from Kalamazoo county June 4, 1883 and June 13, 

 1886, and from Ottawa county May 23 and 24, 1879. The eggs are three 

 to five, white, rather coarsely speckled with brown and lilac, and average 

 .81 by .55 inches. They are not with certainty separable from eggs of the 

 Barn Swallow, but as a rule are more coarsely spotted. 



TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 



Tail with tip emarginate or slightly forked. 



Adult (sexes alike): Forehead white or grayish-white; top of head glossy blue-black; 

 middle and lower back glossy blue-black, more or less streaked with pure white; hind-neck 

 with a grayish collar; rump cinnamon or reddish-buff; upper tail-coverts brownish-gray; 

 cliin, sides of head and most of throat rich, dark chestnut, often extending aromid the neck 

 as a narrow collar (in front of the gray one), and spreading more or less over the chest; 

 middle of throat with a patch of blue-black, very variable in extent, sometimes covering 

 most of the throat, sometimes forming only a small spot; breast and sides grayish-brown 

 or reddish-brown; belly white; under tail coverts mottled dusky and white; wings and tail 

 plain dusky or brownish-black; bill and feet black; iris brown. Young: Little or no cliest- 

 nut about the head and throat, and all the glossy blue-black replaced with dull blackisli; 

 throat mixed with dusky and wliitish; tertiaries and upper tail-coverts edged witii rusty 

 or buff. 



Length 5 to 6 inches; wing 1.05 to 4.55; tail 2 to 2.20. 



247. Barn Swallow. Hirundo erythrogastra Badd. (613) 



Synonyms: American Barn Swallow, Barn-loft Swallow, Fork-taileil Swallow. — 

 llirundo erythrogaster, liodctert, 1783. — H. erytlnogastra, Sclater, 1862. — Chelidon 

 erythrogaster, A. O. U. Check-list, 1886.— Hirundo horreorum, Bart., 1799, Baird, 1858, 

 and many authors. 



Plate LV and Fiffurc 12^. 



Sexes nearly alike. The deeply forked tail (whence the common expres- 

 sion "swallow-tail"), the slender outer feather being about twice as long 



