NATURE STUDY IN SCHOOLS. 



Ill 



WHITE-BELLIED SWALLOW. 



Size, medium, six inches long. Tail, slightly forked. Color, above, 

 lustrous, greenish blue ; beneath, pure white. Female, duller above and 

 ashy beneath. Very young birds are dusky brown throughout, and then have 

 a more or less distinct band of smoky brown across the breast. Apr. 15 to 

 Sept. 15. 



Flight, quite graceful and light. Song, a low, short twitter. Nests, 

 placed in bird boxes, in holes about buildings, in deserted holes of wood- 

 peckers, and in natural cavities of trees, or in holes excavated by the birds 

 in partly decayed trees. Eggs, white, unspotted. 



Fig. 57, 



Head and 'tail of adult male "White-bellied Swallow. 



The white-bellied swallow deposits three eggs during the first week in 

 •June ; the young leave the nests early in July ; after that they congregate on 

 sea shore in vast flocks. 



This is the only swallow which remains any where in the United States 

 in winter, being abundant in Florida all that season, 



