278 THE TREE SWALLOW. 



No. 122. 



TREE SWALLOW. 



A. O. U. No. 614. Iridoprocne bicolor (Vieill.). 

 Synonym. — Whitb-belued Swallow. 



Description. — Adult male : Above, lustrous steel-blue or steel-green ; below, 

 pure white; lores black; wings and tail black, showing some bluish or greenish 

 luster; tail sHghtly forked. Female: Similar to male, but duller. Immature: 

 Upper parts mouse-gray instead of metalHc; below whitish. Length about 6.00 

 (152.4) ; wing 4.57 (116.1) ; tail 2.19 (55.6) ; bill from nostril .25 (6.4). 



Recognition Marks. — Aerial habits ; steel-blue or greenish above ; pure white 

 below. 



Nest, in holes in trees or, rarely, in bird houses, plentifully lined with soft 

 materials, especially feathers. Eggs, 4-6, pure white, — pinkish white before re- 

 moval of contents. Av. size, .75 x .54 (19.1 x 13.7). 



General Range. — North America at large, breeding from the Fur Countries 

 south to New Jersey, the Ohio Valley, Kansas, Colorado, etc. ; wintering from 

 South Carolina and the Gulf States southward to the West Indies and Guatemala. 



Range in Ohio. — Common spring and fall migrant. Not common summer 

 resident, except in a few favored localities. 



ONE Swallow does not make a summer, but a little twittering company 

 of them faring northward makes the heart glad, and fills it with a sense of 

 exultation as it responds to the call of these care-free children of the air. 

 This remark applies to Swallows in general, but particularly to Tree Swal- 

 lows, for in their immaculate garb of dark blue and white, they seem like 

 crystallizations of sky and templed cloud, grown animate with the all-com- 

 pelling breath of spring. They have about them the marks of high-born 

 quality, which we cannot but admire as they spurn with a wing-stroke the 

 lower strata, and rise to accept we know not what dainties of the upper air. 



The Tree Swallow is a lover of the water, and in our latitude he is de- 

 tained for the summer only by the larger bodies, especially the reservoirs. 

 In the summer of 1902 they were found to be very common at the Lewiston 

 Reservoir, where they nested in the numerous stubs, — the water-killed rem- 

 nants of previous forests. The birds are not themselves able to make exca- 

 vations in the wood, but they have no difficulty in possessing themselves of 

 others birds' labors. Old holes will do if not too old, but I once knew a pair 

 of these Swallows to drive away a pair of Flickers from a brand new nesting- 

 hole, and to occupy it themselves. 



Among -the writer's earliest oological recollections are those of a little 

 stub sticking out of the muck and saw-grass of an Illinois swamp. A neat- 



