[re 
BARN SWALLOW. 
618. Hirundo erythrogastra. 7% inches. 
Female duller plumaged and with a less deeply forked 
tail than the male. Forehead and throat chestnut and 
entire under parts buffy; tail deeply forked and with 
a white spot on the inner web of each feather except the 
central pair. 
This is the most graceful and beautiful of all our 
swallows, and is the most common about farm houses, 
the inside beams and rafters of which they appropriate 
for their own use. They delight in skimming oyer the 
rolling meadows or the gsurtace of ponds, now rising 
with the wind, now swooping downward with the speed 
of an arrow. 
Song.—A continuous, rapid twitter. 
Nest.—A bowl-shaped structure made up of pellets 
of mud cemented together with the birds’ saliva, and 
lined with feathers - attached to rafters in barns, the 
opening being at the top and not at the side as in the 
last; eggs exactly like those of the last. 
Range.—N. A., breeding north to the limit of trees; 
winters in northern South America. 
