Species II. EIRTJNDO AMERICANA. 



BARN SWALLOW. 



[Plate XXXVIII. Fig. 1, Male. Fig. 2, Female.] 



There are but few persons in the United States unacquainted with 

 this gay, innocent, and active little bird. Indeed the whole tribe are so 

 distinguished from the rest of small birds by their sweeping rapidity of 

 flight, their peculiar aerial evolutions of wing over our fields and rivers, 

 and through our very streets, from morning to night, that the light of 

 heaven itself, the sky, the trees, or any other common objects of nature, 

 are not better known than the Swallows. We welcome their first ap- 

 pearance with delight, as the faithful harbingers and companions of 

 flowery spring, and ruddy summer ; and when, after a long, frost-bound 

 and boisterous winter, we hear it announced, that " The Swallows are 

 come," what a train of charming ideas are associated with the simple 

 tidings ! 



The wonderful activity displayed by these birds forms a striking 

 contrast to the slow habits of most other animals. It may be fairly 

 questioned whether among the whole feathered tribes which Heaven has 

 formed to adorn this part of creation, there be any that, in the same 

 space of time, pass over an equal extent of surface with the Swallow. 

 Let a person take his stand on a fine summer evening by a new mown 

 field, meadow or river shore for a short time, and among the numerous 

 individuals of this tribe that flit before him, fi.x his eye on a particular 

 one, and follow, for a while, all its circuitous labyrinths — its extensive 

 sweeps — its sudden, rapidly reiterated zigzag excursions, little inferior 

 to the lightning itself, and then attempt by the powers of mathematics 

 to calculate the length of the various lines it describes. Alas ! even 

 his omnipotent fluxions would avail him little here, and he would soon 

 abandon the task in despair. Yet, that some definite conception may 

 be formed of this extent, let us suppose, that this little bird flies, in his 

 usual way, at the rate of one mile in a minute, which, from the many 

 experiments I have made, I believe to be within the truth ; and that he 

 is 80 engaged for ten hours every day ; and further, that this active 

 life is extended to ten years (many of our small birds being known to 

 live much longer even in a state of domestication), the amount of all 



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