152 
THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS. 
inches of each other, and extend in various strata 
along the front of the precipice, sometimes for eighty 
or one hundred yards. At the extremity of this 
hole, a little fine dry grass, with a few large downy 
feathers, form the bed on which their eggs, generally 
five in number, and pure white, are deposited. The 
young are hatched late in May ; and here I have 
taken notice of the common crow, in parties of four 
or five, watching at the entrance of these holes, to 
seize the first straggling young that should make its 
appearance. 
" From the clouds of swallows that usually play 
round these breeding places, they remind one, at a 
distance, of a swarm of bees. 
This bird appears to be in nothing different from 
the European species ; from which circumstance, and 
its early arrival here, I would conjecture that it 
passes to a high northern latitude on both continents. 
Hirundo Americana, (barn-swallow.) There are 
but few persons in the United States unacquainted 
with this gay, innocent, and active little bird. In- 
deed, 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, 
