SPECIES 4. 
HIE UNDO RIP^RM.^ 
BANK SWALLOW, OR SAND MARTIN. 
[Plate XXXVIIL— Fig. 4.] 
LATH.Syft. IV, p. 568 — 10. — Jlrct. ZooL ii, Ab. 332 . — UHirondelle 
de rivage, Buff, vi, 632. FI. Enl. 545. f. 2. — Turt. Syst. 629. — 
Peale’s Museum, JYo. 7637. 
This appears to be the most sociable with its kind and the 
least intimate with man, of all our Swallows; living together in 
large communities of sometimes three or four hundred. On the 
high sandy bank of a river, quarry, or gravel pit, at a foot or 
two from the surface, they commonly scratch out holes for their 
nests, running them in a horizontal direction to the depth of two 
and sometimes three feet. Several of these holes are often with- 
in a few 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. 
The Bank Swallow arrives here earlier than either of the pre- 
ceding; begins to build in April, and has commonly two broods 
in the season. Their voice is a low mutter. They are particular- 
ly fond of the shores of rivers, and, in several places along the 
* Linn. Syst. i,p. 344. — Gmei. Syst. i, p. 1019. — Lath. Ind. Orn, ii, p. 575. 
