192 . FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 
beam, with its edges built up so high that the callow young 
can hardly climb, much less tumble out, until quite ready 
to fly. Nevertheless, the general character of the nest is 
the same; the eastern, civilized swallows have only made 
use of their superior advantages to perfect the inherited 
idea. In the case of the barn-swallow, its civilization re- 
sults in an addition to its pains (is it not a natural conse- 
quence 4), in that its nest now is required to be much larger, 
more carefully, and hence more laboriously, made. On the 
other hand, its neighbor, the eave-swallow, has contrived to 
save itself labor by the change from wild life. 
This latter species is sometimes called the republican 
swallow, because at the breeding-season it gathers in ex- 
tensive colonies, where its homes are crowded together as 
closely as the cells in a honey-comb, one wall often serv- 
ing for two or more contiguous structures. The nests are 
gourd-shaped, or like a chemist’s retort, and are fastened by 
the bulb to the cliff, generally where it overhangs, with the 
curving necks opening outward and affording an entrance 
just large enough to admit the owner. This retort is con- 
structed of pellets of mud, well compacted in the little ma- 
son’s beak, and made adhesive by mixture with the glue- 
like saliva with which all swallows are provided. In this 
snug receptacle the pretty eggs are laid upon a bed of soft 
