About the House. 



35 



except the forehead, steel blue, the forehead and throat being bright chest- 

 nut. This color becomes paler on the breast and belly, particularly in the 

 female. All the tail feathers but the two middle ones have white on their 

 inner webs. The adult birds are almost seven inches long-. Immature birds 

 are pale below and dusky above, the outer tail feathers are shorter, making 

 a much less forked tail. 



BARN SWALLOW. 



The birds are gregarious, generally several, and often many pairs nest- 

 ing in the same barn, where the beams and rafters afford shelves on which 

 they place their nests. These structures are open, built of mud pellets mixed 

 with straws and grasses, and have a lining of finer grasses and feathers, often 

 those shed from the poultry in the yard hard by. They are attached by the 

 sides to the wall of some cave or of an outbuilding. Sometimes they are 

 placed on a ledge or beam which answers for a shelf to support them. The 

 eggs, four to six in number, are about three quarters of an inch long and rather 

 more than half an inch in their other diameter, and are white in color, spot- 

 ted with brown. The birds range throughout the region under consideration. 



