SWALLOWS 263 



hanging ledge or by the projecting eaves. Telegraph wires 

 are favorite perches, and often hundreds of the swallows may 

 be seen at once perched on the wires in close ranks. They 

 feed over pastures, cultivated lands, ponds, and rivers, taking 

 their food chiefly on the wing ; occasionally they alight on the 

 ground to pick up food and to secure the mud used in con- 

 structing their nests. In the colony on the Tennessee River 

 a pair of duck hawks were living in the same cliff, but no indi- 

 cation was evident of disagreement between the hawks and 

 the swallows. 



Food habits. — The food of the cliff swallow consists almost 

 entirely of insects, most of them taken on the wing. Beetles, 

 ants, bees, wasps, flies, and bugs make up the greater part of 

 the food, and include such destructive species as the chinch bug 

 and the cotton-boll weevil. During late summer and fall, 

 when these swallows are moving southward in large flocks, 

 they capture immense numbers of boll weevils over the cotton 

 fields. Thirty-five birds shot in Texas in September had 

 eaten a total of 678 weevils, one bird having consumed 48 of 

 the insects at a single meal. Honey bees (all drones) were 

 identified in 13 of the 375 stomachs examined.* 



BARN SWALLOW: Hirundo rustica erythrogastris 

 Boddaert.t 



State records. — The barn swallow occurs abundantly as a 

 migrant and casually as a breeder in the northern part of the 

 State. It is probably the most numerous of any of the swal- 

 lows and remains for a longer period than the others. Mi- 

 grants arrive in spring about the middle of April and are 

 common for about a month. The southward movement be- 

 gins the latter part of July and continues until the middle of 

 September. McCormack records the bird at Leighton be- 

 tween April 15 and May 15 and between August 6 and Septem- 

 ber 13. Avery noted it at Greensboro during practically the 

 same periods. First arrivals were seen at Sylacauga, April 14 

 (1908), Barachias, April 21 (1912), and Sand Mountain 



•Cf. Beal, F. E. L., Food Habits of the Swallows ; Bull. 619, U. S. Dept AfiX., pp. 6- 

 11 191S. 

 ' IBirnndo erythroeastr* of the A. O. U. Check-Kst ; for chanee of name see The Auk, 



vol. 35, p. 212, 191S. 



