34 



BARN SWALLOW. 

 HIRUNDO AMERICANA. 

 [Plate XXXVIIL— Pig. 1, Male.—Yig. % Female?^ 



Veal^'s Museum, No, iei09. 



THERE are but few persons in the United States unacquaint- 

 ed with this gay, innocent, and active little bird. Indeed the whole 

 tribe are so distinguished from the rest of small birds by their 

 sweeping rapidity of flight, their peculiar aerial evolutions of wing 

 over our fields and rivers, and through our very streets, from morn- 

 ing to night, that the light of heaven itself, the sky, tlie trees, or any 

 other common objects of nature, are not better known than the 

 Swallows. We welcome their first appearance with delight, as the 

 faithful harbingers and companions of flowery spring, and ruddy 

 summer; and when, after a long, frost-bound and boisterous win- 

 ter, we hear it announced, that " The Swalloivs are come^'^ what a 

 train of charming ideas are associated with the simple tidings! 



The wonderful activity displayed by these birds forms a striking 

 contrast to the slow habits of most other animals. It may be fairly 

 questioned whether among the whole feathered tribes which heaven 

 has formed to adorn this part of creation, there be any that, in the 

 same space of time, pass over an equal extent of surface with the 

 Swallow. Let a person take his stand on a fine summer evening 

 by a new mown field, meadow or river shore for a short time, and 

 among the numerous individuals of this tribe that flit before him 

 fix his eye on a particular one, and follow, for a while, all its cir- 

 cuitous labyrinths — its extensive sweeps — its sudden, rapidly reite- 

 rated zig-zag excursions, little inferior to the lightning itself, and 

 then attempt by the powers of mathematics to calculate the length 



