418 BARM SWALLOW, 



universally in their favour, they are seldom or never disturbed. 

 The proprietor of the barn last mentioned, a German, assured 

 me, that if a man permitted the Swallows to be shot his cows 

 would give bloody milk, and also that no barn where Swallows 

 frequented would ever be struck with lightning; and I nodded 

 assent. When the tenets of superstition " lean to the side of hu- 

 manity" one can readily respect them. On the west side of the 

 Alleghany these birds become more rare. In travelling through 

 the states of Kentucky and Tennesee, from Lexington to the 

 Tennesee river, in the months of April and May, I did not see 

 a single individual of this species; though the Purple Martin, 

 and, in some places, the Bank Swallow was numerous. 



Early in May they begin to build. From the size and struc- 

 ture of the nest it is nearly a week before it is completely fin- 

 ished. One of these nests, taken on the twenty-first of June 

 from the rafter to which it was closely attached, is now lying 

 before me. It is in the form of an inverted cone with a perpen- 

 dicular section cut off on that side by which it adhered to the 

 wood. At the top it has an extension of the edge, or offset, for 

 the male or female to sit on occasionally, as appeared by the 

 dung; the upper diameter was about six'pfches by five, the 

 height externally seven inches. This shell is formed of mud, 

 mixed with fine hay as plasterers do their mortar with hair, to 

 make it adhere the better; the mud seems to have been placed 

 in regular strata, or layers, from side to side; the hollow of this 

 cone (the shell of which is about an inch in thickness) is filled 

 with fine hay, well stuffed in; above that is laid a handful 

 of very large downy geese feathers; the eggs are five, white, 

 specked and spotted all over with reddish brown. Owing to the 

 semi-transparency of the shell the eggs have a slight tinge of 

 flesh colour. The whole weighs about two pounds. 



They have generally two broods in the season. The first make 

 their appearance about the second week in June; and the last 

 brood leave the nest about the tenth of August. Though it is 

 not uncommon for twenty, and even thirty pair, to build in the 

 same barn, yet every thing seems to be conducted with great 



