104 . CLASS AVES. 



• 

 ground, it rapidly remounts to its ordinary elevation. It is 



a sedentary bird, and extremely wild. Like the other 



swallows, it drinks flying, and sometimes catches, as it 



passes, the spiders which weave their nets under the branches. 



It passes the night in the holes of trees. These swallows 



come to their retreats about sunset, in small flocks. Before 



they enter, they fly round about three or four times, and at a 



considerable distance from the tree. The cry which they 



utter in flying is something like the sound of a small castanet. 



There is no diff'erence between the male and female, the 



young and adult. 



The Aculeated Swallow. Hirundo Pelasgia. It is an 

 inhabitant of Louisiana and Carolina. It is also found still 

 farther north, even to Pennsylvania, and beyond. Everywhere 

 it fixes its nest on the top of chimnies, or in the crevices of 

 rocks, if it has no other choice of place. It constructs this 

 nest with an industry peculiar to itself. First of all, it 

 establishes a sort of platform, composed of dry branches, and 

 cemented together with peach-tree gum, or that of liquid 

 amber. These materials are in such abundance, that they 

 sometimes stop up the aperture of the chimney. It is said, 

 that the bird supports itself, during this labour, by applying 

 the sharp points of its tail against the wall. On this sort of 

 scaffolding it places the cradle of its young, which is com- 

 posed only with small sticks, glued together with the same 

 gum, and arranged like the osiers of a basket, such as is 

 given to pigeons to hatch in. It is open at top, and forms 

 about the third of a circle. The eggs arc four or five, of an 

 elongated form, very gross in proportion to the size of the 

 bird, spotted and streaked with black and grayish brown 

 towards the gross end, on a white ground. 



The GoATsucKEUs (Caprivmdgi) are so named from a 

 most absurd notion, that they suck the mammae of goats, a 

 notion which may perhaps have originated in the enormous 

 depth and aperture of the gape. This vulgarism is by no 



