454 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Bam Swallow is one of our most delightful singers. His song is al- 

 ways full of charm, soft and lovely, devoid of all roughness. Besides 

 delivering an individual song, he delights in singing in chorus. It is 

 a sweet and cheerful song full of little trills and joyful bubbles of 

 music, at times clear and sparkling, at times oozing and rubbery. 

 Like the music of a brook it flows on indefinitely. At times the old 

 barn is permeated with its melody. * * * From the first day of 

 their arrival in late April till the end of August and even into Sep- 

 tember this charming bird sings. Very few birds have such a long and 

 continuous song season." 



The barn swallow not only sings delightfully throughout a long 

 season, but also through a long summer day. Horace W. Wright 

 (1912) says that the twitter of this swallow is one of the earliest 

 sounds in the morning awakening, and seems "to proceed at first from 

 the birds on their night perches." His earliest record is 2.51 a. m., and 

 the average of 11 records is 3.04 a. m. 



Field marks. — The barn swallow is one of the best known and most 

 easily recognized of our swallows. It is the only North American 

 swallow that has a long, deeply forked tail, with white spots on the 

 tail feathers, and rich brown or buffy under parts. The females are 

 usually duller colored than the males, but not always. The young 

 birds are much duller in color and the lateral tail feathers are shorter 

 than in the adults, but the under parts are never white and the tail is 

 always more deeply forked than in other species. 



Enerrdes. — Probably more swallows perish from the effects of in- 

 clement weather than from any other cause ; a prolonged, cold rain- 

 storm drives insects to cover, the swallows are unable to obtain the 

 necessary amount of their accustomed food, and old birds, as well as 

 young in the nests, die from hunger and cold. The use of horsehair in 

 the nests, in which the wings, feet, or necks of the birds become en- 

 tangled, results in the death of some. House wrens have been known 

 to puncture the eggs of barn swallows and appropriate their nests. 

 Cowbirds may very rarely deposit their eggs in the swallows' nests. 

 English sparrows and phoebes contend with them for nesting sites 

 and even drive them from their nests. As the swallow skims low over 

 the surface of a pond, it may be caught by some large fish or bullfrog ; 

 Forbush (1929) gives an authentic account of such a case, from Mrs. 

 Chester Bancroft, of Tyngsboro, Mass.: "There is a brook flowing 

 through the Bancroft yard, in which lived an enormous bullfrog, 

 which Mrs. Bancroft's daughter had been watching with interest dur- 

 ing the summer of 1927. One day she saw the tips of a bird's wings 

 protruding from the corners of his mouth. The frog was finally 

 caught and relieved of what he had swallowed. It was a full-grown 

 Barn Swallow." 



