MANLY HARDY. 115, 
far out into the open pastures, especially those on_hill- 
sides, where they can feed without danger of being surprised. 
Formerly it was a very common thing to see the old males 
strut around, dragging their wings and quit-quiting, like Tur- 
keys. Of late years one is seldom seen to do this, and they 
very rarely make any noise except when flying. Perhaps the 
greatest changes have taken place among Swallows. Find- 
ing that their favorite insect food could be found in greatest 
abundance near habitations, they have almost entirely 
abandoned their former building-places, and also in a great 
measure their habits of building. Blue-backed Swallows, 
which away from settlements nest in holes in trees and 
stumps, now nest under eaves of houses and in martin-boxes. 
Cliff Swallows, which, as their name indicates, formerly built 
against the sides of cliffs, now so generally build under 
eaves that they are now often known by the name of Eaves 
Swallows. Audubon tells us that when he first saw them 
near Cincinnati, in 1819, they had been there only about 
four years, having come from the West about 1815. He 
describes their nests then, as being shaped like a gourd, with 
the neck turned down, and his plate on page 117 of his first 
volume is an exact likeness of their nests as I first saw them, 
over fifty yearsago. Mr. E. A. Samuels, as late as 1875, 
described the nests as being gourd-shaped. “The larger 
part being attached to the cliff or building, and the neck 
turning downward and outward, the entrance at the part 
resembling the neck of the gourd.” While his description 
was correct of the nests as they formerly had been, I think 
that he copied his description instead of describing the nests 
from actual observation as they then were, as the birds were 
already modifying their style of building; but I well re- 
member when every nest was built as he describes, and the 
old birds used to sit in the hole at the end, which often was 
wide enough to allow two to sit abreast. Now all this is 
changed, Instead of the long curved covered way leading 
to the base, most nests are simply an open structure like half 
