MANLY HARDY. 



15 



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 i8ig, 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 years ago. Mr. E. A. Samuels, as late as 1875, 

 described the nests as being gourd-shaped. " The larger 

 part being attached to the cUff 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 



