THE BIRD BOOK 
SWALLOWS. Family HIRUNDINID^ 
6ll. Purple Martin. Prague subis subis. 
Range. — Breeds throughout the United States 
and temperate British America; winters in 
South America. 
These large, lustrous, steely-blue Swallows 
readily adapt themselves to civilization and, 
throughout the east, may be found nesting in 
bird houses, provided by appreciative land 
owners or tenants; some of these houses are 
beautiful structures modelled 
after modern residences and 
tenanted by twenty or thirty 
pairs of Martins; others are 
plain, unpainted soap boxes 
or the like, but the birds 
seem to take to one as kindly 
as the other, making nests in 
their compartments of weeds, grass, mud, 
feathers, etc. They also, and most commonly 
in the west, nest in cavities of trees making 
r.ests of any available material. During June 
or July, they lay from four to six white eggs; 
size .95 x .65. Data. — Leicester, Mass., June 
16, 1903. 5 eggs in Martin house; nest of 
Purple Martin 
grasses. 
6l la. Western Martin. Progne subis hesperia. 
Range. — Pacific coast from Washington south. 
The nesting habits, eggs, and birds of this form are identical with those found 
in the east. 
611.1. Cuban Martin. Progne cry ptoleuca 
Range. — Cuba and southern Florida (in sum- 
mer). 
Slightly smaller than the Purple Martin and 
the eggs average a trifle smaller. 
612. Cliff Swallow. Petrochelidon luni- 
frons lunifrons. 
Range. — Whole of North America, breeding 
north from the south Atlantic and Gulf States. 
These birds can easily be rec- 
ognized by their brownish throat 
and breast, whitish forehead and >'■£* ~ . 
buffy rump. They build one of 
the most peculiar of nests, the 
highest type being a flask 
shaped structure of mud secure- White 
ly cemented to the face of a cliff or under the 
eaves of a building, the entrance being drawn 
out and small, while the outside of the nest 
proper is large and rounded; they vary from 
Cliff Swallow 
372 
