SWALLOW 



5643 



SWAN 



SWALLOW, swahl'o, a small, graceful bird, 

 with long, powerful wings, small, weak feet 

 fitted only for perching, and a large mouth 



The swallow is come ! 



The swallow is come ! 

 O, fair are the seasons, and light 



Are the days that she brings, 



With her dusky wings, 

 And her bosom snowy white ! 



LONGFELLOW : Hyperion. 



adapted to the capture of insects, upon which 

 it feeds almost exclusively. It devours count- 

 less numbers of mosquitoes. 



Swallows are found in all parts of the world. 

 Most of them are migratory, flying great dis- 

 tances to avoid cold or to find a food supply. 

 So far as is known they migrate by day, flying 

 together in large numbers and spending the 

 nights in woods or marshes. They nest both in 

 pairs' and in colonies. Some make their homes 

 in holes in banks or trees, and others build 

 rough, stuccoed nests of clay or mud, which 

 they place on beams of bridges or on rafters in 

 barns. Several species have modified their 

 nesting habits through their contact with man. 

 Their eggs are usually four or five in number, 

 the color being pure white or white spotted 

 with brown. 



Among the swallows of North America are 

 the barn swallow, with steel-blue back, chest- 

 nut-colored breast and deeply-forked tail, per- 

 haps the swiftest in flight of all birds; the cliff 

 swallow, distinguished from the barn swallow 

 by its square tail ; the tree swallow, which often 

 nests in bird houses; and the purple martin, 

 described in these volumes under MARTIN. 



Consult Nuttall's Manual of the Ornithology of 

 the United States and Canada; Davie's Nests and 

 Eggs of North American Birds. 



SWAN, swahn, a stately water bird, belong- 

 ing to the same family as the geese and ducks. 

 The beauty of its snowy plumage and the 

 proud poise of its long, graceful neck have ever 

 suggested to the song writer and the poet a 

 majestic white ship sailing over the waters. It 

 is a poetic fancy of unknown origin that the 



swan chants its own death dirge, whence the 

 "swan song" famed in legend and in verse. 

 This tradition has no scientific basis, but it has 

 been the inspiration of many charming poetic 

 lines, such as are found in the Evening Songs 

 of the German poet Heine, printed herewith. 



There are eight species of the swan group, 

 found in various parts of the world. They have 

 the common habit of migrating in V-shaped 

 flocks, and of uttering loud, trumpetlike notes 

 when on the wing. They subsist on the seeds 

 and roots of water plants and worms and mol- 

 lusks, dipping the long, curving neck far into 

 the water as they probe the bottom in search 

 of food. 



The well-known American, or whistling, swan 

 nests in the vicinity of the Arctic Ocean and 

 the Hudson Bay region, migrating in winter as 

 far south as the Gulf of Mexico. Between 

 October and April large flocks of the whistling 

 swans wend their way southward, flying, it is 

 said, at the rate of 100 miles an hour, and filling 

 the air with sounds that range from deep bass 

 notes to the shrillest tones of a clarinet. The 

 nest, lined with down from the bird's own body, 

 is made of sticks and water 

 pl am X and is sometimes two 

 anc * s * x f eet across. 

 Two to six eggs, gray 

 ish in color, are 



And over the pond are sailing 



Two swans all white as snow ; 

 Sweet voices mysteriously wailing 



Pierce through me as onward they go. 

 They sail along, and a ringing 



Sweet melody rises on high ; 

 And when the swans begin singing 



They presently must die. 



HEINE : Evening Songs. 



laid in June. The young are at first cov- 

 ered with grayish-brown down, which becomes 

 snowy-white by the end of a year. 



This species is a little less than five feet long, 

 and is entirely white except for a yellow spot 

 between nostrils and eyes. The legs, feet and 

 bill are black. Similar to the whistling swan 



