VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOW 379 



on very good terms with the male. The other female birds seemed to be 

 merely meddlesome bnsybodies who had no home of tlieir own nor young 

 to care for, and, like a cat that has lost her kittens, just had to have some 

 one to mother. 



Apparently only one brood is reared in a season; Dawson (1923) 

 says so, and I can find no evidence of a second brood. Probably a 

 second attempt would be made if the first attempt failed. Harry S. 

 Swarth (1904) says that in the Huachuca ]\Iountains, where these 

 swallows breed at the higher elevations, "toward the end of July, 

 1902, after the young were out of the nest, they moved down into the 

 lower parts of the mountains, where young and old were seen together 

 in large flocks; the young birds being, in many cases, still fed by 

 their parents." 



Plumages. — I have seen no unfledged young, which are probably 

 like those of the closely related tree swallow. Eidgway (1904) 

 describes the young bird in juvenal plumage as "above plain sooty 

 grayish brown, darker on back, where faintly glossed with purple, 

 violet, or bronze; a white patch on each side of rump, as in adults; 

 lores dusky gray ; auricular region and postocular spot mottled sooty 

 brown and grayish white, or uniformly of the former color; under 

 parts grayish white anteriorly, pure white posteriorly, the chest 

 usually tinged with sooty brown, especially laterally, where some- 

 times with a distinct narrow transverse patch of brown." 



This plumage is worn through the summer and perhaps early fall ; 

 apparently a complete postjuvenal molt occurs in September and 

 October, producing a first winter plumage, which is practically the 

 same as the winter plumage of the adult. Both adults and young 

 birds, in fresh fall plumage, have the tertials conspicuously margined 

 and tipped with white ; these white edgings disappear by wear during 

 the winter. Adults have one complete annual molt in late summer 

 and in the fall. Wear produces only a slight effect on the spring 

 plumage. Females, after the postjuvenal molt, are always much 

 duller in color than the males, with gray mottling on the sides of the 

 head, making them readily distinguishable. 



Food. — The violet-green sw^allow seems to live entirely on insect 

 food, taken on the wing. It does not differ materially from other 

 swallows in this respect. Prof. F. E. L. Beal (1907) examined 67 

 stomachs and found that bugs (Hemiptera), mostly leaf hoppers 

 and leafbugs, constituted 36 percent of the food. Diptera (flies) 

 came next, 29 percent. Hymenoptera amounted to 23 percent and in 

 July were mostly made up of ants; six stomachs taken on one day 

 were entirely filled w'ith ants, and another, taken the next day, 

 was half full of them; the ants were evidently swarming on the 

 wing at that time and were easily caught, as very few were taken 

 at other times. The remainder of the Hymenoptera eaten were wasps 



