250 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 



ing chirrup being all its voice can accomplish ; nor is it a 

 handsome bird simply sooty-brown above, white beneath, 

 with a brown breast. To its grace of motion and charm- 

 ing home-life we attribute that in it which attracts us. 



Although probably the least numerous of all the swal- 

 lows, they do not seem so, because of the great compa- 

 nies which are to be seen together wherever they are to be 

 found at all; and because, leading a more sequestered life, 

 they are not usually brought into direct comparison with 

 house-martins and chimney -swifts. Eminently social in 

 their habits, they congregrate not only at the time of mi- 

 gration (then, indeed, least of all), and in the construction 

 of their homes, but sometimes alight in great flocks on the 

 reeds by the river-side and on the beach, where Sir William 

 Jardine saw them, " partly resting and washing, and partly 

 feeding on a small fly, which was very abundant." Yet 

 you will occasionally notice stray individuals associating 

 with other swallows. 



The secret of the local distribution of the bank-swallows 

 lies in the presence or absence of vertical exposures of soil 

 suitable for them to penetrate for the burrows at the inner 

 end of w r hich the nest is placed. Firm sand, with no ad- 

 mixture of pebbles, is preferred, and in such an exposure, 

 be it sea-shore, river-bank, sand-pit, or railway-cutting, the 



