BANK SWALLOW. 
51 
mutter. They are particularly fond of the shores of 
rivers, and, in several places along 1 the Ohio, they con- 
gregate in immense multitudes. We have sometimes 
several days of cold rain and severe weather after their 
arrival in spring, from which they take refuge in their 
holes, clustering together for warmth, and have been 
frequently found at such times in almost a lifeless state 
with the cold ; which circumstance has contributed to 
the belief that they lie torpid ail winter in these recesses. 
I have searched hundreds of these holes in the months 
of December and January, but never found a single 
swallow, dead, living, or torpid. I met with this bird 
in considerable numbers on the shores of the Kentucky 
river, between Lexington and Danville. They like- 
wise visit the sea shore, in great numbers, previous to 
their departure, which continues from the last of Sep- 
tember to the middle of October. 
The bank swallow is five inches long, and ten inches 
in extent; upper parts, mouse coloured, lower, white, 
with a band of dusky brownish across the upper part 
of the breast ; tail, forked, the exterior feather slightly 
edged with whitish ; lores and bill, black ; legs, with 
a few tufts of downy feathers behind; claws, fine 
pointed and very sharp; over the eye, a streak of 
whitish ; lower side of the shafts, white ; wings and 
tail, darker than the body. The female differs very 
little from the male. 
This bird appears to be in nothing different from the 
European species; from which circumstance, and its 
early arrival here, I would conjecture that it passes to 
a hiodi northern latitude on both continents. 
O 
