THE EAVES-SWALLOW. 203 



young birds naturally return to the place where they were born. 

 Or the English sparrows may have driven out the swallows 

 from the houses erected for them, as has happened in most 

 of our larger New England towns. Or suitable nesting-places 

 may be scarce and the materials for building wanting; for 

 each species of swallow has some peculiar requirement. 



The bank swallow not only desires, but must have, a bank 

 to dig in, and the soil must be not too stiff for him to excavate 

 with his feeble feet and not so sandy as to cave in upon him 

 while he is digging. The rough-winged swallow, which less 

 often makes his own hole, likes the deserted burrows of the 

 kingfisher. The barn swallow wants a barn whose doors stand 

 open or whose owner has kindly made little openings large 

 enough for his going in and out. The blue-backed swallow 

 demands snug crannies, natural or artificial, and often builds 

 in old woodpecker's holes or in the gutters of old-fashioned 

 houses. The eaves-swallow wants mud. No less necessary 

 is a suitable place on which to plaster it, either a cliff or an 

 overhanging clay bank, or the sides of a barn or house with 

 sheltering eaves. As human dwellings are now far more 

 abundant and convenient than suitable cliffs, the eaves-swallow, 

 except in the remotest regions, has entirely lost the original 

 cliff-building habit, and is now seldom called by her old name 

 of cliff-swallow, but by the new one of eaves-swallow. 



The eaves-swallow cannot use all kinds of mud. To make a 

 nest strong enough to support four or five full-grown young 

 and one or both parent birds, requires mud that is adhe- 

 sive and tenacious, that is, sticky mud, which will not be 

 brittle or crumbling when dry. Clay has these properties ; so 

 the eaves-swallow and the brickmaker, who also helps to build 

 houses out of mud, work together on the clay beds. Nearly 

 always about brickyards you will see eaves-swallows if 



