360 ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOW. 
soaring through the air. In searching for their food, which consists mainly of small 
insects, these birds skim low over meadows and the surface of the water, ‘dropping 
upon the latter, as they fly to drink or bathe.” 
The Bank Swallow is a remarkably silent bird. Its song is of little value, con- 
sisting only of a number of low twittering notes. 
NAMES: Bank Swattiow, Sand Martin, Sand Swallow,—Uferachwalbe (German). 
SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Hirundo riparia Linn. (1758). Cotyle riparia Boie (1826). Hirundo riparia var. 
americana Max. von Wied (1858). CLIVICOLA RIPARIA Steyn. (1882). 
DESCRIPTION: ‘“Lustreless mouse-brown above, white below, with a brown necklace; wings and tail, dusky, 
unmarked. A small tuft of feathers at the lower end of the tarsus. _ Sexes, alike. 
“Small: length scarcely 5.00 inches; extent, 10.50; wing, 4.00; tail, 2.00 inches.” (S. & C., 
“N, E. B. L.” I, p. 186). 
ROUGHR-WINGED SWALLOW. 
Stelgidopteryx serripennis BAIRD. 
URING MY residence at Houston, Texas, in the years of 1879 to 1881, I found 
iS the ROUGH-WINGED SwALLow the most abundant of the family. The experienced 
observer can readily distinguish this bird from other Swallows by its comparatively 
slow and low flight, its peculiar quietness, and its gray color. Though distributed over 
an immense territory, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Mexico to the British 
Provinces, it was not known to Wilson and other naturalists of the same period. 
Audubon discovered it near Bayou Sara, in his native State Louisiana, October 20, 
1819, but at that time he did not, “‘perhaps, recognize it as distinét from the Sand 
Martin; for he did not describe it for many years afterward, and then did so from a 
pair procured in South Carolina.... He knew nothing of the birds’ habits, and sur- 
mised that its most habitual residence might prove to be far westward, perhaps the 
valley of the Columbia River, which was a famous ultima Thule in ornithology of the 
Audubonian period.” (Coues.) In the East it occurs as far north as southern New 
England, and in the West it was found north to Vancouver. In Wisconsin and northern 
Illinois I have never observed the Rough-winged Swallow. In southern Il!linois and 
Missouri it is rather common, and in Texas I have met with it in many places. 
In July and August hundreds of these Swallows fly over the streets in Houston, 
Texas, circling around cattle and around the houses, and catching mosquitoes and flies. 
In that city and in Galveston many pairs breed in crevices and crannies in the brick- 
walls of large store-houses and public buildings, under bridges, and in the banks of the 
bayous and rivers. In other localities they occasionally breed in clefts of rocks, in knot- 
holes of trees, and in deserted Kingfishers’ holes. Although in Texas and Missouri I 
put up quite a number of convenient nesting-boxes, which were fastened to poles, build- 
ings, and trees, none of them ever was occupied by a pair of Rough-winged Swallows, 
neither have I observed them nesting behind weather-boards of buildings. When 
