66 TWENTIETH CENTURY CLASSICS 



I have occasionally heard it sing from a perch a rather 

 pleasing, musical song, interrupted at times with its 

 harsh, grating notes. 



Its nest is placed in thorn trees, hedges, briers, etc. ; 

 a rough, bulky structure, composed of small sticks and 

 stems, with bits of leaves, wool, feathers and other soft, 

 fragmentary substances sparingly woven in, and lined 

 with fine stemlets of weeds and grass, and sometimes with 

 hairs. Eggs four to six, 1.02x.73 ; dull grayish to yellow- 

 ish white, spotted with varying shades of brown and ob- 

 scure lilac, more or less confluent at the larger end ; in 

 some cases thickly spotted and blotched over the entire sur- 

 face, so as to nearly conceal the ground color; in form, 

 oval. A set of five eggs, taken June 5th, 1878, at Pewau- 

 kee, Wisconsin, from a nest in a small thorn tree, are, in 

 dimensions: l.OOx.72, l.Olx.75, 1.02x.75, 1.03x.73, 

 1.05x.73. 



XI. BAEN SWALLOW. 

 Chelidon eryihrogaster (BoDD.). 



Summer resident; common. Arrive from about the 

 10th to the last of April ; begin laying about the middle 

 of May; leave the last of August to first of September. 



HABITAT. North America in general; south in winter 

 into South America; found breeding as far south as the 

 City of Mexico, but breed chiefly north of the southern 

 United States. 



Iris dark brown; bill, legs, feet and claws black. 



These handsome Swallows excel in easy and graceful 

 movements, in the air, all others of the family, and they 

 are, I think, the swiftest flyers among the birds. They are 

 more evenly distributed during the breeding season than 



