THE KLECKO SWALLOW. 
416 
to meet him, scolding vehemently, and endeavouring to daunt him 
with his little parade of anger. His nest is worked up of various 
materials, such as fibres of dry weed-stalks, bits of rotten wood, and 
so many pieces of newspaper that his apparent affection for this 
material has procured him, says Wilson, the sobriquet of " the 
politician." The different articles are well woven together with 
caterpillars' silk, and the lining consists of fine dry grass and hair. 
THE KLECKO SWALLOW. 
Mounting our Pegasus, or hobby-horse, we traverse lands and seas 
to arrive in the region of the sun, India and the Indian Archipelago. 
Here we meet with the klecko swallow (one of the Dendro- 
chelidons), — the Manuk-pedang, or "sword-bird," of the Malays; a 
bird of beautiful plumage, shining with emerald and azure reflections, 
thrown up, as it were, by the pure white of the under pai-t of the 
body. 
Like all of his race, he lives in the jungles and the thickets, but 
more particularly in the low-lying grounds, where he may be seen 
perched upon dry and leafless trees, but always, or almost always, in 
the neighbourhood of water. His flight is extraordinarily rapid. 
When at rest, he is incessantly raising and lowering the plumy tuft 
that crowns his head. When on the wing, he utters a piercing cry, 
which at once betrays his whereabouts; it may be expressed by the 
syllables, kia, kia, kia ; while, when perched, he sings a little song, 
something like tschiffel, tschaffel, kleko, kleko. 
The nest of the klecko is a curious structure. While the other 
dendrochelidons build along rocks or walls, in the chinks and crevices, 
he betakes himself to the loftiest branches of the tallest trees. There 
he plants his nest, hemispherical in form, and in the arrangement of its 
materials not unlike that of the salangane, which we shall presently 
describe. It is, however, smaller and more shallow. Attached to a 
small horizontal branch, which forms its posterior side, it resembles 
exactly a small cup, and is just capable of containing a single egg. 
The sides are as thin as a sheet of parchment. They are composed 
of feathers, lichens, and various kinds of bark, all welded together with 
