SPECIES 2. HIRUNDO AMERICANA. 



BARN SWALLOW. 



[Plate XXXVIIL Fig. 1, Male. Fig. 2, Female.} 

 PE ALE'S Museum, No. 7609. 



THERE are but few persons in the United States unacquaint- 

 ed with this gay, innocent, and active little bird. Indeed the 

 whole tribe are so distinguished from the rest of small birds by 

 their sweeping rapidity of flight, their peculiar aerial evolutions 

 of wing over our fields and rivers, and through our very streets, 

 from morning to night, that the light of heaven itself, the sky 

 the trees, or any other common objects of nature, are not bet- 

 ter known than the Swallows. We welcome their first appear- 

 ance with delight, as the faithful harbingers and companions of 

 flowery spring, and ruddy summer; and when, after a long, 

 frost-bound and boisterous winter, we hear it announced, that 

 " The Swallows are come," what a train of charming ideas 

 are associated with the simple tidings ! 



The wonderful activity displayed by these birds forms a 

 striking contrast to the slow habits of most other animals. It 

 may be fairly questioned whether among the whole feathered 

 tribes which heaven has formed to adorn this part of creation, 

 there be any that, in the same space of time, pass over an equal 

 extent of surface with the Swallow. Let a -person take his stand 

 on a fine summer evening by a new mown field, meadow or 

 river shore for a short time, and among the numerous individu- 

 als of this tribe that flit before him fix his eye on a particular 

 one, and follow, for a while, all its circuitous labyrinths its 

 extensive sweeps its sudden, rapidly reiterated zig-zag excur- 

 sions, little inferior to the lightning itself, and then attempt by 

 the powers of mathematics to calculate the length of the various 



