418 
BARN SWALLOW. 
universally in their favour, they are seldom or never disturbed. 
The proprietor of the barn last mentioned, a German, assured 
me, that if a man permitted the Swallows to be shot his cows 
would give bloody milk, and also that no barn where Swallows 
frequented would ever be struck with lightning; and I nodded 
assent. When the tenets of superstition “ lean to the side of hu- 
manity” one can readily respect them. On the west side of the 
Alleghany these birds become more rare. In travelling through 
the states of Kentucky and Tennesee, from Lexington to the 
Tennesee river, in the months of April and May, I did not see 
a single individual of this species; though the Purple Martin, 
and, in some places, the Bank Swallow was numerous. 
Early in May they begin to build. From the size and struc- 
ture of the nest it is nearly a week before it is completely fin- 
ished. One of these nests, taken on the twenty -first of June 
from the rafter to which it was closely attached, is now lying 
before me. It is in the form of an inverted cone with a perpen- 
dicular section cut off on that side by which it adhered to the 
wood. At the top it has an extension of the edge, or offset, for 
the male or female to sit on occasionally, as appeared by the 
dung; the upper diameter was about six inches by five, the 
height externally seven inches. This shell is formed of mud, 
mixed with fine hay as plasterers do their mortar with hair, to 
make it adhere the better; the mud seems to have been placed 
in regular strata, or layers, from side to side; the hollow of this 
cone (the shell of which is about an inch in thickness) is filled 
with fine hay, well stuffed in; above that is laid a handful 
of very large downy geese feathers; the eggs are five, white, 
specked and spotted all over with reddish brown. Owing to the 
semi-transparency of the shell the eggs have a slight tinge of 
flesh colour. The whole weighs about two pounds. 
They have generally two broods in the season. The first make 
their appearance about the second week in June; and the last 
brood leave the nest about the tenth of August. Though it is 
not uncommon for twenty, and even thirty pair, to build in the 
same barn, yet every thing seems to be conducted with great 
