SWALLOWS. 33 



nest solitary, usually inside of barns. All these 

 Swallows are brilliantly plumed birds, with coats 

 of glossy steel-blue or green, and vested with 

 snowy white or rufus ; but the little Bank Swallow 

 (Cottle riparia) is a lustreless courser of the air, 

 draped only in dull, mouse - colored feathers. 



It chooses, however, the grandest home of the 

 tribe. Sometimes it makes its nest in a low 

 bank, but more frequently in the lofty summits 

 of the towering red cliffs that loom over ocean's 

 surges, on the wild sea -coast. How airy and 

 beautiful their ceaseless circling round the dark 

 summit of the great sea - battlement, while the 

 billows surge, and lash, and foam, and thunder 

 below ! 



The birds dig their nest - holes two or three 

 feet into the face of the clay top of the cliffs. 

 At the inner extremities the nests of grass and 

 feathers are placed, having each four or five pure 

 white eggs. 



Swallows stay with us but a short season. 

 No sooner does summer arrive at its full ma- 

 turity in August, and their young are fledged, 

 than they are away to sunnier fields of the 

 south. They gather in great flocks, whenever 



