Barn Swallow 



711 



great foresight in selecting the most suitable soil to work in. The entrance 

 is not circular but horizontally elliptical, and the hole may extend in for a distance 

 varying from one to four feet, though about two feet is the usual distance. The 

 nest proper, placed at the farther end of the burrow, is a slight affair of dried 

 grasses and feathers; the four to six eggs are pure white. The half dozen other 

 species usually referred to this genus (Mr. Ridgway does not consider them con- 

 generic) appear to have habits similar to those described above. 



Typical Swallows; Barn Swallow. The largest and in some respects most 

 typical genus is Hirundo, which comprises upward of forty species of generally 

 familiar and well-known birds, practically 

 all parts of the world being represented. 

 They are small to rather large Swallows, 

 with the nostrils opening laterally and over- 

 hung by an operculum, while the tail is 

 usually long and forked for more than one- 

 third of its length, though in a few other- 

 wise typical forms it is shorter and but 

 slightly forked. The plumage is mainly 

 glossy blue-black or dark steel-blue above 

 with a rufous patch on the forehead or 

 rump or both, while the under parts are 

 either "partly chestnut or rufous, whitish 

 streaked with darker, or white with a black 

 band across the chest." The only indige- 

 nous species of the genus in the New 

 World is the American Barn Swallow (H. 

 erythrogastra), the two West Indian species 

 having recently been set aside by Mr. Ridg- 

 way as a new genus (Lamprochelidon}. This 

 bird is found throughout North America, 

 breeding as far north as Greenland and 

 Alaska and wintering in Central and South 



America, and is known at once by its deeply forked tail, dark steel-blue 

 upper parts, and chestnut forehead, throat, and breast. It is the most 

 generally distributed of our Swallows, there being hardly an old barn or shed 

 without its pair or small colony, and there is no more graceful sight than a 

 number of these birds on the wing as they skim low over the surface or rise 

 as light as a feather, now turning this way, now that in their erratic course. 

 The nest is an open cup-shaped structure composed of pellets of mud 

 and attached usually to the rafters inside of buildings or occasionally on the 

 face of a cliff. It is lined with soft grasses or more frequently feathers and 

 contains four to six white, thickly spotted eggs. 



European Barn Swallow. Very closely related to the last, but distinguished 

 by a broad band of glossy blue-black across the chest is the European Barn 

 or Chimney Swallow (H. rustica), which occurs mainly throughout the Palae- 



FIG. 201. American Barn Swallow, 

 Hirundo erythrogastra. 



