544 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
Adult male: Glossy blue-black or steel blue above and below; wings black, with less 
blue gloss; bill and feet plain black; iris brown. Adult female: Similar, but the glossy 
blue-black above not so brilliant or continuous; usually a distinct grayish collar on the 
hind-neck; under parts grayish or grayish white, darker (almost dusky) on throat, chest 
and sides, lighter on belly and under tail-coverts, where“many feathers have narrow dusky 
shaft-lines; wings brownish-black; bill and feet as in male. The fully adult plumage is 
not acquired until the second or third year, and many males are found breeding while in 
a plumage very much like that of the adult female, but usually with scattering patches 
of blue-black feathers. 
Length 7.25 to 8.50 inches; wing 5.65 to 6.20; tail 3 to 3.40. 
246. Cliff Swallow. Petrochelidon lunifrons lunifrons (Say). (612) 
Synonyms: Eave Swallow, Jug Swallow, Barn Swallow, Mud Swallow.—Hirundo 
lunifrons, Say, 1823.—Hirundo fulva, Bonap., Aud., Nutt.—Petrochelidon lunifrons of 
most authors. 
Recognizable at a glance by the white or cream colored crescent on the 
forehead (whence the specific name lunifrons) and the cinnamon rump, 
the latter a conspicuous mark when flying. Sexes alike. The tail slightly 
emarginate, almost square. 
Distribution.—North America, north to the limit of trees, breeding south 
to the valleys of the Potomac and the Ohio, southern Texas, southern 
Arizona, and California; Central and South America in winter. 
This beautiful swallow, although not as well known as the true Barn 
Swallow, is yet generally distributed throughout the state and nests abund- 
antly wherever suitable conditions obtain. In some cases it is known as 
the Barn Swallow, being more abundant than the true Barn Swallow, 
and placing its globe-shaped or flask-shaped nests in a long row under 
the eaves on the outside of the barn. Formerly the bird is known 
to have placed its nest on rocky cliffs and in certain parts of the 
west it still does so commonly, and we have one record of such _nest- 
ing for Michigan. Max M. Peet thus describes a nesting colony on 
Isle Royale: ‘The Cliff Swallow was only found at one place on the 
island, at Scovill Point, on July 19, 1905, where a number of nests were 
found placed on the bare face of the rocks. They were above the reach 
of the waves and were usually protected above by shelving of rock. The 
nests were composed of mud and lined with feathers but could not be 
examined closely. Probably they contained young, as the old birds con- 
tinually flew to the nests and then away again, chattering all the time” 
(Adams’ Rep., Mich. Geol. Surv., 1908, 369). According to Kumlien and 
Hollister “in 1845 it was nesting abundantly on the cliffs of Devil’s Lake 
[Wis.], and twenty years ago was still breeding there in less numbers, and 
more about farm houses than on the cliffs. At the present day it has 
almost entirely deserted the cliffs in Wisconsin, and has gradually spread 
over all the unsettled parts of the State.’ In 1877 Professor Aughey 
counted 2,100 nests of this bird on the sides of a perpendicular chalk rock 
on the bank of the Missouri river near Niobrara, Nebraska. 
About the larger cities and towns in Michigan the English Sparrow has 
been a potent factor in reducing the numbers of Cliff Swallows. The 
mud nests of swallows form convenient receptacles for the eggs of Sparrows 
and they often take possession of the nests and drive the swallows away 
entirely. In some cases a colony of Cliff Swallows will return year after 
year to the same nesting place in undiminished numbers, but more often 
they disappear after a few years and then after an absence of several years 
