BIRDS OF NEW YORK 



351 



Haunts and habits. Like the White-breasted swallow, this species 

 prefers to hunt its prey over the surface of the water and is most abundant 

 along rivers, lakes and bays. It nests in large communities, sometimes 

 thousands of holes being seen in the same sand bank, occasionally not 

 more than a few inches apart. The excavations are from 18 inches to 

 3 feet in depth, the openings usually a flattened ellipse about 2 inches or 

 2.5 inches in width and 1.5 inches in vertical dimension. They are excavated 

 by the birds themselves, and the end of the tunnel is enlarged to contain 



Young Bank swallows 



the nest of.straws, grasses and feathers. The eggs are usually 5 in number, 

 but vary from 4 to 6. They are pure white in color and average .68 by 

 .48 inches in dimensions. About a sand bank inhabited by these little 

 swallows one may frequently see thousands of birds in the air darting in 

 and out of the holes, wheeling about in every direction, and keeping up 

 a continuous reedy, buzzing twitter quite distinct from the notes of our 

 other swallows. In the fall they gather in immense numbers on the tele- 

 graph wires which cross the swamplands and edges of the lakes, and roost 



