SPECIES 4. HIRUNDO 

 BANK SWALLOW, OR SAND MARTIN. 

 - [Plate XXX VIII. Fig. 4.] 



LATH. Syn. iv,p. 56810. Arct. Zoot. n, JVo. 332. L'Hirondelle. 

 de ri-uage, BUFF, vi, 632. PL Enl. 543. /. 2. TURT. Syst. 629. 

 PEALE'S Museum, JVo. 7637. 



THIS appears to be the most sociable with its kind and the 

 least intimate with man, of all our Swallows; living together in 

 large communities of sometimes three or four hundred. On the 

 high sandy bank of a river, quarry, or gravel pit, at a foot or 

 two from the surface, they commonly scratch out holes for their 

 nests, running them in a horizontal direction to the depth of two 

 and sometimes three feet. Several of these holes are often with- 

 in a few inches of each other, and extend in various strata along 

 the front of the precipice, sometimes for eighty or one hundred 

 yards. At the extremity of this hole a little fine dry grass with 

 a few large downy feathers form the bed on which their eggs, 

 generally five in number, and pure white, are deposited. The 

 young are hatched late in May; and here I have taken notice of 

 the common Crow, in parties of four or five, watching at the 

 entrance of these holes, to seize the first straggling young that 

 should make its appearance. From the clouds of Swallows that 

 usually play round these breeding places, they remind one at a 

 distance of a swarm of bees. 



The Bank Swallow arrives here earlier than either of the pre- 

 ceding; begins to build in April, and has commonly two broods 

 in the season. Their voice is a low mutter. They are particular- 

 ly fond of the shores of rivers, and, in several places along the 



*LIKW, Sysl. i, p. 344. GMKL. Syst. i, p. 1019. LATH. Ind. Orn, n, p, 575, 



