558 



HIRUNDO RUSTICA. THE RED-FRONTED OR 

 CHIMNEY SWALLOW. 



SWALLOW. COMMON SWALLOW. GOBHLAN-GAOITHE. 



Fig. 266 



Hirundo rustica. Linn. Syst. Nat. I. 343. 



Hirundo rustica. Lath. Ind. Orn. IL 572. 



Chimney or Common Swallow. Mont. Orn. Diet. 



Hirondelle de Chemin6e. Hirundo rustica. Temm. Man. d'Orn. L 427- 



Chimney Swallow. Hirundo rustica. Selb. Illustr. 1. 120. 



Hirundo rustica. Chimney Swallow. Jen. Brit. Vert. An. 157. 



Upper parts glossy steel-blue ; forehead and throat brownish- 

 red ; a broad baud on the fore-neck dusky ; tail very deeply 

 forked, each feather, excepting the two middle, icith a white spot 

 on the inner u'eb ; breast and abdomen reddish-white. 



Male. — This beautiful, most lively, and familiarly known 

 bird, which, with the other swallows, we gladly hail as the 

 harbinger of summer, is of a slender form, having the body 

 small and somewhat compressed, the neck short, the head 

 rather large ; the bill short, depressed, very broad at the base, 

 the tip of the upper mandible a little deflected, the notch dis- 

 tinct. The mouth is very wide, measuring half an inch across ; 

 both mandibles slightly concave ; the palate flat and but slight- 

 ly arched ; the tongue short, triangular, three and a half twelfths 

 long, emarginate and papillate at the base, the tip slightly bifid. 

 The oesophagus, Plate XXII, Fig. 4, abed, which is two 



