SWALLOWS. 33 



nest solitary, usually inside of barns. All these 

 Swallows are brilliantly plumed birds, with coats 

 of glossy steel-blue or green, and vested with 

 snowy white or rufus ; but the little Bank Swallow 

 ( Cotile nparia) is a lustreless courser of the air, 

 draped only in dull, mouse - colored feathers. 



It chooses, however, the grandest home of the 

 tribe. Sometimes it makes its nest in a low 

 bank, but more frequently in the lofty summits 

 of the towerinu; red cliffs that loom over ocean's 

 surges, on the wild sea -coast. How airy and 

 beautiful their ceaseless circling round the dark 

 summit of the great sea - battlement, while the 

 billows surge, and lash, and foam, and thunder 

 below ! 



The birds dig their nest - holes two or three 

 feet into the face of the clay top of the cliffs. 

 At the inner extremities the nests of i^rass and 

 feathers are })laced, having each four or five pure 

 white eggs. 



Swallows stay with us but a short season. 

 No sooner does summer arrive at its full ma- 

 turity in August, and their young are fledged, 

 than they are away to sunnier fields of the 

 south. They gather in great flocks, whenever 



