HABITS OF THE BARN SWALLOW 409 



IN tbe case of this Swallow, whose name is a u household 

 word " alike with the learned and the ignorant of ornithol- 

 ogy, it is unnecessary to rehearse the items which have 

 formed staples of biography since Wilson wrote truly " that 

 the light of heaven itself, the sky, the trees or any other 

 common objects of Nature, are not better known than the 

 Swallows. We welcome their first appearance with delight, 

 as the faithful harbingers of flowery spring and ruddy sum- 

 mer; and when, after a long, frost-bound, and boisterous 

 winter, we hear it announced, that 'the Swallows are come, 7 

 what a train of charming ideas are associated with the 

 simple tidings!" But almost all the written history of the 

 bird has the savor of home ; we think of Swallows and 

 the city street, the farm -yard, the bursting barn, the new- 

 mown hay, the flocks and herds, and all the changes of 

 the seasons that come to us when comfortably housed for- 

 getting, perhaps, the trackless waste of the West, where Swal- 

 lows are still as wild and primitive as any birds, bounden 

 by no human ties, and no associates of civilization. Let us 

 see the Swallow as he was before there were houses in this 

 country as he still remains in some parts of the world : we 

 shall find him living in caverns, like the primitive cave-dwell- 

 ers of our race ; in holes in the ground like the foxes of 

 Scripture ; in hollow trees, like the hamadryads of mythology 

 so lowly is the habitation of this winged messenger of the 

 changeful seasons. And yet, no sooner does the sound of the 

 woodsman's axe in the clearing foretell the new day, than the 

 twitter of the Swallow responds like an echo, and the glad 

 bird hastens to fold his wings beneath a sheltering roof. 



Along the parallel of 49 I occasionally observed Barn Swal- 

 lows at various places from the Red Kiver of the North to the 

 Eocky Mountains, during July and August of 1873-74. Except- 

 ing at Pernbina, Dakota, where, however, I do not think that any 

 of these Swallows were breeding among the numbers of Eave 

 and White- bellied that I saw during my visit, there were no hu- 

 man habitations for the birds to occupy : and as eligible breeding- 

 places were few and far between, Barn Swallows were compara- 

 tively rare. A small colony which had settled along a stream 

 near the Sweetgrass Hills, gave the opportunity of observing 

 one of the many modifications of their breeding habits. Here 

 the nests were built on the ground, in little holes and crevasses 

 in the perpendicular face of a cut-bank. I could not satisfy 



