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256 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
HIRUNDO LUNIFRONS.— Say. 
The Cliff Swallow; Eave Swallow. 
Hirundo lunifrons, Say. Long’s Exped. R. Mts., II. (1823) 47. 
Hirundo respublicana, Audubon. Ann. N.Y. Lyc., I. (1824) 164. 
Hirundo fulva, Audubon. Orn. Biog., I. (1831) 353. 
Hirundo melanogaster, Swainson. Philos. Mag., I. (1827) 366. 
Petrochelidon melanogastra, Cabanis. Mus. Hein., 47. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Crown and back steel-blue; the upper part of the latter with concealed pale 
edges to the feathers; chin, throat, and sides of the head dark-chestnut; breast 
fuscous; belly white; a steel-blue spot on throat; rump light-chestnut; forehead 
brownish-white; a pale nuchal band; tail slightly emarginate. 
Length, about five inches; wing, four and forty one-hundredths; tail, two and 
twenty one-hundredths. 
Hab. — North America from Atlantic to Pacific. 
The Cliff Swallow is very generally distributed as a sum- 
mer inhabitant of New England. It arrives from the South 
from about the 25th of April to the 1st of May. It has all 
the habits and characteristics of the preceding species, and 
is probably as well known throughout New England as that 
bird. About the 10th of May (sometimes earlier, sometimes 
later, according to latitude), it pairs, and commences build- 
ing. The nest is usually fixed beneath eaves or cornices, 
or other jutting portions of buildings, or on cliffs, beneath 
overhanging portions of rock: it is constructed externally 
of pellets of mud and earth, which are gradually plastered 
together into a large gourd-shaped structure; the larger part 
attached to the building or cliff, and the neck curving out- 
ward and downward. At the part of the nest resembling 
the neck of the gourd is the entrance. The whole fabric is 
much more brittle than the nest of the Barn Swallow, for the 
reason that no grass or hay is worked into the mud to give 
it strength. A lining of fine grass and feathers is fixed in 
this, and the whole makes a very neat and comfortable 
structure. The eggs are usually five in number. They 
can hardly be distinguished from those of the preceding 
