Blue and Bluish 



of the delicacy, richness, and brilliancy of the living tints. But, 

 happily, the beautiful barn swallow is too familiar to need descrip- 

 tion. Wheeling about our barns and houses, skimming over the 

 fields, its bright sides flashing in the sunlight, playing "cross 

 tag " with its friends at evening, when the insects, too, are on 

 the wing, gyrating, darting, and gliding through the air, it is no 

 more possible to adequately describe the exquisite grace of a 

 swallow's flight than the glistening buff of its breast. 



This is a typical bird of the air, as an oriole is of the trees 

 and a sparrow of the ground. Though the swallow may often 

 be seen perching on a telegraph wire, suddenly it darts off as if 

 it had received a shock of electricity, and we see the bird in its 

 true element. 



While this swallow is peculiarly American, it is often con- 

 founded with its European cousin Hirundo rustica in noted 

 ornithologies. 



Up in the rafters of the barn, or in the arch of an old bridge 

 that spans a stream, these swallows build their bracket-like nests 

 of clay or mud pellets intermixed with straw. Here the noisy 

 little broods pick their way out of the white eggs curiously spotted 

 with brown and lilac that were all too familiar in the marauding 

 days of our childhood. 



Cliff Swallow 



( Petrochelidon lunifrons) Swallow family 



Called also: EAVE SWALLOW; CRESCENT SWALLOW; 

 ROCKY MOUNTAIN SWALLOW 



Length — 6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English sparrow. 

 Apparently considerably larger because of its wide wing- 

 spread. 



Male and Female — Steel-blue above, shading to blue-black on crown 

 of head and on wings and tail. A brownish-gray ring 

 around the neck. Beneath dusty white, with rufous tint. 

 Crescent-like frontlet. Chin, throat, sides of head, and tail 

 coverts rufous. 



Range — North and South America. Winters in the tropics. 



Migralions— Early April. Late September. Summer resident. 



Not quite so brilliantly colored as the barn swallow, nor 

 with tail so deeply forked, and consequently without so much 



107 



