Swallows SONG-BIRDS. 



theory that it passed the winter under the mud bottom of 

 large ponds and rivers in a state of hibernation. The mat- 

 ter has even been treated seriously, in spite of its manifest 

 absurdity, the construction of the bird's breathing-apparatus 

 precluding such a possibility. 



Bank Swallow: CUvicola riparia. 



Sand Martin. 



Plate 19. Fig. 2. 



Length : 6 inches. The smallest of our Swallows. 



Male and Female : Above dull mouse colour, wings and tail brownish, 



below white, with a brownish breast band. Bill and feet dark. 

 Song : A giggling twitter. 



Season : Common summer resident, arriving in May. 

 Breeds : All through its North American range. 

 Nest : In tunnelled holes in clayey banks ; made of grass and lined 



with a few feathers. 

 Eggs: 4-6, pure white. 

 Bange : Northern Hemisphere ; in America, south to the West Indies, 



Central America, and northern South America. 



The Bank Swallow is the plainest, as well as the smallest, 

 of the family. His back is the colour of the damp mottled 

 gray sand with which he is closely associated, and he shows 

 no glints of purple, steel-blue, and buff, like his brethren, 

 but wears a dusky cloak fastened about his throat with a 

 band of the same colour. 



There is always a large colony of these Swallows near 

 Southport, where Sasco Hill is cut off abruptly by the 

 Sound. The bank is high, and shows a face of various 

 grades of loam and some strata of gravel ; below there is a 

 bit of stony beach, bare at low tides, but in storms the 

 water breaks half-way up the bank. A few feet above high- 

 water mark you can see the holes in the bank which are the 

 entrances to the Swallows' nests. They are not arranged 

 with any sort of regularity, but the birds have chosen inva- 

 riably the stiff loam, which was the least likely to crumble 

 away in the boring-process. None of the tunnels are within 



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