Species II. HIRUNDO AMERICANA. 
BAKN SWALLOW. 
[Plate XXXVIII. Fig. 1, Male. Fig. 2, Female.] 
There are but few persons in the United States unacquainted 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 morning to night, that the light of 
heaven itself, the sky, the trees, or any other common objects of nature, 
are not better known than the Swallcnvs. We welcome their first ap- 
pearance with delight, as the faithful harbingers and companions of 
flowery spring, and ruddy summer ; and when, after a long, frost-bound 
and boisterous winter, we hear it announced, that " The Swallows 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 circuitous labyrinths — its extensive 
sweeps — its sudden, rapidly reiterated zigzag excursions, little inferior 
to the lightning itself, and then attempt by the powers of mathematics 
to calculate the length of the various lines it describes. Alas ! even 
his omnipotent fluxions would avail him little here, and he would soon 
abandon the task in despair. Yet, that some definite conception may 
be formed of this extent, let us suppose, that this little bird flies, in his 
usual way, at the rate of one mile in a minute, which, from the many 
experiments I have made, I believe to be within the truth; and that he 
is so engaged for ten hours every day ; and further, that this active 
life is extended* to ten years (many of our small birds being known to 
live much longer even in a state of domestication), the amount of all 
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