FULVOUS OR CLIFF SWALLOW. 
603 
attentive parents. When able to provide for themselves, 
they are still often fed on the wing without either party 
alighting ; so aerial and light are all their motions, that 
the atmosphere alone seems to be their favorite element. 
In the latter end of summer, parties of these social birds 
may be often seen by the sides of dusty roads, in which 
they seem pleased to bask. 
About the middle of August they leave the barns, and 
begin to prepare for their departure, assembling in great 
numbers on the roofs, still twittering with great cheer- 
fulness. Their song is very sprightly, and sometimes a 
good while continued. Some of these sounds seem like 
't’le ’t’le 9 t’letalit , uttered with rapidity and great ani- 
mation. Awhile before their departure, they are ob- 
served skimming along the rivers and ponds after insects 
in great numbers, till the approach of sunset, when they 
assemble to roost in the reeds. 
The length of the species is about 7 inches, alar stretch 13. Ex- 
terior feathers of the tail an inch and a half longer than the next. 
Iris dark hazel. Legs dark purple. — Female with the belly and 
vent rufous-white. 
FULVOUS or CLIFF SWALLOW. 
(Hirundo fulva, Vieill. Bonap. Am. Orn. i. p. 63. pi. 2. fig. 1. Aud. 
pi. 68. Orn. i. p. 353. Phil. Museum, No. 7624.) 
Sp. Charact. — Blue-black: beneath brownish-white ; throat and 
rump ferruginous; front with a paler semi-lunar band; tail even. 
The Cliff Swallow has but recently come to the notice 
of naturalists. Its summer residence in the temperate 
parts of America is singularly scattered. They appear 
to have long occupied the regions near the Rocky 
Mountains, the cliffs of the Missouri, and probably other 
large western rivers. In 1815, they appeared for the 
first time at Henderson on the banks of the Ohio, and at 
New Port in Kentucky. In 1817, they made their ap- 
