256 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



HIEUNDO LUNIFRONS. — Say. 



The Cliff Swallow ; Eave Swallow. 



Hirundo lunifrons, Say. Long's Exped. R. Mts., II. (1823) 47. 

 Birundo resjmblicana, Audubon. Ann. N.Y. Lye, I. (1824) 164. 

 Hirundo fulva, Audubon. Cm. Biog., I. (1831) 353. 

 Hirundo melanoc/ aster, Swainson. Philos. Mag., I. (1827) 866. 

 Petrochelidon melanogastra, Cabanis. Mus. Hein., 47. 



Description. 



Crown and back steel-blue; the upper part of the latter with concealed pale 

 edges to the feathers; chin, throat, and sides of the head dark-chestnut; breast 

 fuscous; belly white; a steel-blue spot on throat; rump light-chestnut; forehead 

 browiiish-white; a pale nuchal band; tail slightly emarginate. 



Length, about five inches ; wing, four and forty one-hundredths ; tail, two and 

 twenty cne-hundredths. 



Hob. — North America from Atlantic to Pacific. 



The Cliff Swallow is very generally distributed as a sum- 

 mer inhabitant of New England. It arrives from the South 

 from about the 25th of April to the 1st of May. It has all 

 the habits and characteristics of the preceding species, and 

 is probably as well known throughout New England as that 

 bird. About the 10th of May (sometimes earlier, sometimes 

 later, according to latitude), it pairs, and commences build- 

 ing. The nest is usually fixed beneath eaves or cornices, 

 or other jutting portions of buildings, or on cliffs, beneath 

 overhanging portions of rock : it is constructed externally 

 of pellets of mud and earth, which are gradually plastered 

 together into a large gourd-shaped structure ; the larger part 

 attached to the building or cliff, and the neck curving out- 

 ward and downward. At the part of the nest resembling 

 the neck of the gourd is the entrance. The whole fabric is 

 much more brittle than the nest of the Barn Swallow, for the 

 reason that no grass or hay is worked into the mud to give 

 it strength. A lining of fine grass and feathers is fixed in 

 this, and the whole makes a very neat and comfortable 

 structure. The eggs are usually five in number. They 

 can hardly be distinguished from those of the preceding 



