The OoLOGiST. 



VOL. XIV. NO. 3. 



ALBION, N. Y., MARCH, 1897. 



Whole No. 130 



The Nest Building- of the Swallows. 



Last summer I was very much inter- 

 ested in the different opinions express- 

 ed in your valuable journal by corres- 

 pondents on the above subject, but 

 want of time prevented me to enter al- 

 so into this discussion, as I intended to 

 make a long chapter of it, while with 

 unusual facilities my observations ex- 

 tend to both sides of our hemisphere. 

 In Germany, the Swallows -are by all 

 people regarded with affection as har- 

 bingers of luck and good cheer. No- 

 body harms them and consequently 

 they are very tame and abound in great 

 numbers. I have been especially fond 

 of them from my earliest recollections, 

 and when I watched their way of sit- 

 ting in long rows, often in company 

 with the bold and impudent Sparrows, 

 on the beams which connected the high 

 Gothic pillars at our church— an old 

 one built in the twelfth century, and in 

 which very many windows were brok- 

 en, through which they entered; to the 

 childish fancies the little white-breast- 

 ed birds preached better sermons than 

 the minister, or even Luther, whose 

 life-size picture hung on the pillar 

 underneath them, could have done. 

 But the Sparrows were noisy and 

 quarrelsome, and, to my regret, the 

 municipality concluded to have a res- 

 toration of the church with new win- 

 dows all around. My father had the 

 eonti aec for this work, and so I learned 

 and became intimately acquainted with 

 many interesting facts concerning these 

 Swallow nests, some of which had no 

 doubt been built centuries before, the 

 number gradually increasing to thous- 

 ands all around the windows, in the re- 

 cesses formed by the thick brick walls. 

 The workmen had to use stone-cutters' 

 tools to chip them off, so hard had they 



become; and by their construction no 

 doubt a certain glue-like substance had 

 been used with the chalky mortar. 

 Their shape was variable, some half 

 round and partly open, and some— the 

 most of them — had only a round hole 

 for their entrance. These were the 

 nests of the Swifts, and Cypselus apus, 

 and C. pelasgia, and also of Eirundo 

 urbica, and H. 7-ustica; then the varied 

 sizes and colors of the eggs which had 

 to be sacrificed, testified to their differ- 

 ent kinds. Some of them were very 

 long and thin, some more oval, and 

 some brownish speckled; while the oth- 

 ers were white or nearly so. That the 

 workmen in destroying the nests while 

 the birds were bx-eeding had a hard 

 time of it, was natui'al. The distress 

 of the birds was pitiful in the extreme. 

 The house Swallows often built their 

 nests over the porch of the house door, 

 about the entrance, and the rearing of 

 their young is watched by all alike witli 

 pleasure. 



Here on our own place I have seen 

 them build under the roof of the barn, 

 entering by a window, and under the 

 shed close by. It took a pair a whole 

 week after their arrival to decide about 

 the best situation, and all their relations 

 had to come and give their opinions, 

 too, about it. When finally concluded, 

 they kept for hours wetting the space- 

 on which the nest was to be fastened. 

 This they did with their own saliva, 

 while clinging to the wall, without leav- 

 ing the shed. Later they brought mater- 

 ial of mud -from the bank of the brook, 

 and cow-dung fresh from the pasture. In 

 two days the home was done with the 

 exception of the inner lining which was 

 not very elaborate. Dried grasses I 

 have seen them pull up with their other 

 material, but never saw nor heard the 

 breaking of dried twigs. To the con- 



