The Northern Violet-green Swallow 
bird-boxes. No more welcome tenants can be lured from the wilds than 
birds of this and the succeeding species. Besides the fascination of their 
endless wing-play, one comes to love as a thing apart their amiable creak- 
ings and twitterings. At the height of the nesting season, both Tree and 
Violet-green Swallows will dedicate the first hour of the morning twilight 
to song; and they will sail about slowly in the darkness uttering continuous 
notes for minutes at a stretch. The rhythm (but not the sentiment) may 
be embodied as follows: Sweetie kickup, sweetie kickup, sweetie sweetie 
kickup, sweetie kickup kickup, etc. It is very difficult to distinguish 
between the notes of the two species, but those of the smaller bird, T. thal- 
assina, are perhaps of a lighter character and more often musical. 
No. 108 
Violet-green Swallow 
A. O. U. No. 615. Tachycineta thalassina lepida Mearns. 
Synonym.— Northern Violet-green Swallow. 
Description. —Adult male: Upperparts, including pileum, hind-neck, back, 
upper portion of rump, scapulars, and lesser wing-coverts, rich, velvety bronze-green, 
occasionally tinged with purple; crown usually more or less contrasting with color 
of back, greenish-brown, or olive-green, rather than bronze-green, and more strongly 
tinged with purple; a narrow cervical collar, lower rump, and upper tail-coverts vel¬ 
vety violet-purple, or with more or less admixture of green; wings (except lesser coverts) 
and tail blackish, glossed with violet or purple; lores grayish; underparts, continuous 
with cheeks and area over and behind eye, and with conspicuous flank-patch, nearly 
meeting fellow across rump, pure white; under wing-coverts pale gray, whitening on 
edge of wing. Bill black; feet brownish black; iris brown. Adult female: Like 
male, but usually much duller; bronze-green of upperparts reduced to greenish brown, 
or brown with faint greenish reflections; the cheeks brown with white skirtings. Young 
birds are plain mouse-gray above, white or pale sooty gray below, and their inner 
secondaries are tipped with grayish. Length 114.3-139.7 (4.50-5.50); wing 112 (4.41); 
tail 45 (1.77); bill 5.2 (.20). 
Recognition Marks. —Smaller; green and violet above, white below; white¬ 
cheeked and white-rumped (apparently), as distinguished from the Tree Swallow. 
Nesting. — Nest: Of dried grasses, with or without feathers; placed in cranny 
or crevice of cliff (especially in vapor holes of volcanic formations), or in old wood¬ 
pecker holes—latterly and less commonly in bird-boxes, or in cranny of building. 
Eggs: 4 to 6; pure white. Av. size 18.3 x 12.2 (.72 x .48). Season: May or June, 
according to altitude; one brood. 
General Range. —Western North America, breeding from western Nebraska 
to the Pacific, and from central Lower California and northern Durango north to 
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