l86 HIRUNDINID^E : SWALLOWS. 



BANK SWALLOW. 

 COTILE RIPARIA (L.) Boie. 



Chars. Lustreless mouse-brown above, white below, with a brown 

 necklace ; wings and tail dusky, unmarked. A small tuft of feath- 

 ers at the lower end of the tarsus. Sexes alike. Young: Similar, 

 but usually with whitish or rufous edgings of the feathers of the 

 upper parts. Small: length scarcely 5.00 ; extent, 10.50; wing, 

 4.00 ; tail, 2.00. 



These very plainly-colored Swallows, the least in 

 size of all our species, are abundant summer residents, 

 wherever the requirements of their breeding instinct 

 are fulfilled. Unlike all the rest, the Bank Swallows 

 have never yielded to modernizing influences, and 

 still persist in excavating holes for themselves in the 

 ground, as they have always done. Their nesting 

 habits are very interesting. Given an embankment of 

 earth soft enough to be worked a natural exposure 

 in the bend of a stream, a site left in running a rail- 

 road, a gravel-pit straight the busy birds come flock- 

 ing to colonize. Soon the face of the escarpment will 

 be seen studded with little round holes, before which 

 the light wings dash in airy circles. The places are 

 not unlike those the Kingfisher selects, and the larger 

 entrance of the sturdy rattler's hole may sometimes be 

 seen in the midst of the lesser openings. It is aston- 

 ishing how far the weak birds, with their slight bills 

 and claws, will manage to penetrate the ground ; some- 

 times to the extent of two feet, though the burrows 

 are not ordinarily so extensive as this. They also dis- 

 play much tact in selecting the most suitable soil to 

 work in, neither too hard to be penetrated with ease, 



