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SWALLOWS, 159 
The Barn Swallow is the most generally distributed 
of our Swallows, its habits of nesting in outbuildings 
Barn Swallow, making it at home wherever they offer 
Chelidon it a suitable nesting place. It is about 
erythrogater. seven inches long; the upper parts and 
(Frontixpieve-) sides of the breast are stecl-blue, the 
forehead and throat chestnut, the rest of the under parts 
paler; the tail deeply forked and marked with white. Its 
long tail is a most efficient rudder, permitting the abrupt 
turns which make its flight more erratic than that of any 
other of our Swallows. It skims low over the fields, or 
darts through the village streets with a rapidity and indi- 
rectness which I never witness without astonishment. 
The Barn Swallow arrives from its winter home in 
the tropics about April 15 and remains until late in 
September. Its nest is generally placed on a beam in 
a barn or other outbuilding, and is composed of mud 
and grasses lined with feathers. 
The Cliff or Eave Swallow is less generally distributed 
than the Barn Swallow. It nests in colonies, placing its 
cur rows of mud tenements under cliffs in 
Pitrochelidon | the West and beneath the eaves of barns 
lunifrows. inthe East. It becomes much attached 
ee 4 Gnd locality, and when undisturbed 
returns to it year after year, arriving from the South 
about May 1, and remaining until late September. It is 
six inches long; the forehead is whitish, the crown and 
back steel-blue, the rump rusty ; the throat chestnut with 
a blackish area; the belly white. 
Like the Cliff Swallow, the Bank Swallow nests ir. 
colonies, and is very local during the breeding season. A 
Bank Swallow, ‘@ndbank facing a stream or pond is 
Clivicola riparia. often chosen for a home. Into it a 
(Frontispieee.) — tunnel two or three feet in length is 
bored, and at its end a nest of grasses and feathers is built. 
