The Tree Swallow 
black, showing some bluish or greenish luster; tail slightly forked. Female: Similar 
to male, but duller. Immature: Upperparts mouse-gray instead of metallic; below 
whitish. Length about 152.4 (6.00); wing 116.1 (4.57); tail 55.6 (2.19); bill from nos¬ 
tril 6.4 (.25). 
Recognition Marks. —Aerial habits; steel-blue or greenish above; pure white 
below; a little larger than the next species. 
Nesting. — Nest: In holes in trees, preferably “drowned” trees, or those sur¬ 
rounded by water; a heavy lining of soft materials, especially feathers. Eggs: 4 to 
6; pure white—a pinkish white before removal of contents. Av. size 19.1 x 13.7 
(.75 x .54). Season: May-July; one or two broods. 
General Range. —North America. Breeds from Virginia, Kansas, and southern 
California, north nearly to the limit of trees. Winters from central California, south¬ 
ern Texas, and the Gulf States, south to Cuba, and through Mexico to Guatemala. 
Distribution in California. —Common migrant throughout the State. Breeds 
widely but very locally, notably upon the lakes east and west of the Sierras up to 
(at least) 9000 feet, and in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley; but also in the coastal 
valleys even at sea-level and down to San Diego County. Winters sparingly and ir¬ 
regularly in the lowlands of west central and southern California; also upon the Colo¬ 
rado Desert (Indian Wells, Jan. 30, 1913; Mecca, Feb 3, 1913). 
Authorities.—Gambel (Chelidon bicolor), Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., iii., 
1846, p. no (Santa Barbara); Cones, Birds Col. Val., 1878, p. 413 (syn., habits, early 
hist., etc.; see also p. 364); Ray, Auk, vol. xx., 1903, p. 190 (Sierra Nevada; desc. nest); 
Willett, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 7, 1912, p. 90 (status in s. Calif.); Tyler, Pac. Coast 
Avifauna, no. 9, 1913, p. 92 (Fresno; occurrence, habits, nesting). 
THE SWALLOW is the symbol of summer, and by this token we 
know that we are in the land of perpetual summer, for does not the Tree 
Swallow “winter” with us? The “Merry Christmas” of the Tree Swallow 
is, I think, the sweetest greeting the season offers in the Southland. For 
these birds symbolize purity, liberty, daintiness, and all of gladness that 
the heart holds dear. In their immaculate garb of dark blue and white, 
they seem like crystallizations of heaven and its templed clouds, truth and 
beauty blended, winged fancies, tender tokens of constancy, fragile, yet 
potent, perennial pledges of the eternal Becoming of Nature. 
The Tree Swallow is a lover of water, though doubtless for economic 
-—or shall we say gastronomic?—rather than esthetic reasons. Ponds and 
lakes are the surest source of supply for insect food, not alone because 
of the variety and luxuriance of plant life which their borders afford, but 
because of the comparatively warm atmospheric areas which persist over 
their surfaces when the weather is turning cold. Swallows are very much 
attracted, therefore, to favorite watering places; and whatever their wan¬ 
derings between whiles, they report back every hour or so to headquarters. 
It is over such places that the migrant species linger longest in the autumn, 
and it is here that the hardiest of the returning hosts join the Tree Swal¬ 
lows in early spring. This close dependence upon water gave rise to the 
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