THE CLIFF SWALLOW 



THE Republican or Cliff Swallow is 

 one of several species of North 

 American birds, whose habits have been 

 essentially modified by the settlement of 

 this country by the white man. Before his 

 advent in America, this species built its 

 mud nests only on the perpendicular faces 

 of cliffs and precipices, as it still does in 

 many of the wilder sections of our country; 

 but, as houses and outbuildings became 

 numerous, it was quick to see the oppor- 

 tunities offered by such edifices for its nests, 

 and, perhaps also recognizing in man a 

 protector, it came at length to build its nest 

 and rear its young under his roof. This 

 done, and the habit of making use of 

 houses for his purpose having been estab- 

 lished, it soon followed that the range of 

 the Cliff Swallow became much extended. 

 Formerly there were wide stretches of coun- 

 try where there were no natural building 

 places for these birds — and so where they 

 never nested and were seen only during 

 the migration — but as soon as they had 

 learned to take advantage of the new 

 building places constantly being erected 

 for them, they constructed their nests in 

 such regions and became summer residents 

 where heretofore they had been only birds 

 of passage. It has been affirmed that the 

 Cliff Swallow is not indigenous in the East, 

 but is an immigrant from the West, where 

 indeed it is most abundant, its bottle-shaped 

 nests being seen in great numbers on the 

 cliffs which overhang many Western rivers. 

 Professor Verrill, however, has shown that 

 this species was found in New England as 

 long ago as the year 1800, and Dr. Coues 

 writing on the same subject says: "That 

 the settlement of the country has conduced 

 to the general dispersion of the birds dur- 

 ing the breeding season in places that knew 

 them not before is undoubted; but that any 



general eastward migration ever occurred,, 

 or that there has been in recent times a 

 progressive spread of the birds across suc- 

 cessive meridians, is less than doubtful — is 

 almost disproven. Birds that can fly like 

 the swallows, and go from South America 

 to the Arctic Ocean, are not likly to cut 

 round via the Mississippi, houses or no 

 houses." He then goes on to say that the 

 apparent absence of these birds in the 

 Southern States is due only to the fact 

 that the country is not adapted to them, 

 and expresses the belief that the birds in 

 their migration pass over this region, al- 

 though they do not stop to breed. 



Although the Cliff Swallows, like the 

 purple martin and the chimney swifts, have 

 come to avail themselves of constructions 

 erected by man for their building places, it 

 must not be supposed that even in the more 

 thickly settled portions of the country they 

 abandoned their former habits, for Profes- 

 sor Verrill in i86r found a large colony of 

 these birds building on the limestone cliffs 

 of Anticosti, and the same thing may be 

 seen to-day in the West, where houses are 

 abundant. These birds have simply adapted 

 themselves to a new set of conditions. They 

 have discovered that civilization offers them 

 a new place for building where they are safe 

 from many of the dangers to which in their 

 natural breeding places they are exposed, 

 that when they nest on barns and houses, 

 violent rain storms do not soften the walls 

 of their dwellings so that they fall by their 

 own weight, nor are their enemies, winged 

 and four-footed, as likely to attack them^ 

 and being wise little creatures, they make 

 the most of their oppportunities. 



The Cliff Swallow is a bird of wide range. 

 It may pass its summers on the shores of 

 the Arctic Ocean, and its winters on the 

 hot plains of Old Mexico. It is found 



