462 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



graceful, pleasing flight and the same gentle, friendly, and confiding 

 manners. In fact, the habits of the two birds are almost exactly 

 alike in every way; what has been written about one would apply 

 almost equally as well to the other. 



Voice. — It has similar twittering calls to those of the barn swallow 

 and a pleasing song. Dr. Butler (1896) says: "The Swallow is an 

 admirable singer, and I shall not easily forget the pleasure with which 

 I first heard it, as it poured forth its sweet melody from the girders 

 of a large railway station in Switzerland, in 1869; I have heard it 

 several times since, both in Kent and Norfolk, singing from a tele- 

 graph wire; the song is very varied and, to my mind, far more 

 melodious than that of a Linnet." 



Enetnies. — Rats and mice do some damage to the eggs and young 

 of swallows; cats and weasels, and perhaps owls, kill some birds. 

 There is a long list of parasites that infest the nests and attack the 

 young. House sparrows and wrens often usurp the nests of swal- 

 lows, but these are usually old nests and cases of eviction of the 

 swallows are not common. Capt. Boyd (1935) mentions, in addition 

 to the above statements, that robins and spotted flycatchers have 

 been known to use old swallows' nests. As swallows often like to use 

 their nests for a second or third brood, the usurpation of even 

 the old nests often interferes with this habit and may provoke 

 controversies. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — According to Witherby's Handbook (1920), the European 

 swallow is generally distributed as a summer resident throughout 

 the British Isles, occasionally staying throughout the winter, but 

 it breeds rarely in the extreme west of Ireland, the northwest of 

 Scotland and the Orkneys, and very rarely in the Shetlands and the 

 Outer Hebrides. Its range includes Europe, northwestern Africa, 

 and the western parts of Asia. It is casual on Spitsbergen, Jan 

 Mayen, Greenland, and Novaya Zemlya and occasional on the Faroes 

 and Iceland. It winters in tropical and southern Africa and in India 

 and its islands. It is "replaced by allied forms in Syria (? Asia 

 Minor), Egypt, north Asia to Japan, and North America, all being 

 migrants, wintering far south." 



Spring migration. — In the British Isles "early arrivals of summer 

 residents begin end of third week March (early dates Feb. 29, 1912, 

 Cornwall, Mar. 2, 1912, Cardigan, Mar. 5, 1918, Lanes., Mar. 6 and 

 13, 1913, Scilly) ; main arrival variable, from April 1 to end second 

 week, merging end April into arrival of passage-migrants and con- 

 tinuing to fourth week May" (Witherby, 1920). 



Fall migration. — The same authorities state that the summer resi- 

 dents begin to move south during the last week in July, and emigra- 



