8o 



THE BIRDS ABOUT Us. 



characterizes this beautiful bird is the gourd-shaped 

 mud nest that it builds. The typical nest was a sym- 

 metrical flattened oval with a " bottle-neck" entrance. 

 I remember seeing long rows of these under the pro- 

 jecting roof of an old barn. That was over thirty years 

 ago ; but now there seems to be a tendency to greater 

 simplicity, and the last nests I saw were largely with- 

 out this feature. Was it omitted because no longer 

 a necessity ? It certainly was not because of a scarcity 

 of building material. A correspondent of Warren's, 

 quoted in that author's " Birds of Pennsylvania," re- 

 fers to the entrances of some nests being from three 

 to five inches long. On the other hand, I have found 

 many a nest that was merely a teacup with a good- 

 sized notch in the rim on one side. 



It sometimes happens that while the cliff-swallow's 

 colony occupy the available nesting space on the 



outside, more than 

 one pair of barn- 

 swallows occupy 

 the inside, and pret- 

 tier, more graceful, 

 and useful birds do 

 not exist. If a per- 

 son at all interested 

 ^^- in such matters will 



^^^^ take the pains to 



^^^^^Wjgagps^ 



^ watch a nesting 



Barn-swallow. barn-swallow, he 



will find that the 



bird is most beautifully clothed, and the feathers have, 

 as a whole, a sheen equal to that upon the throat of 



