Identifier: birdlifeguid00chap (find matches)
Title: Bird-life; a guide to the study of our common birds
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Chapman, Frank M. (Frank Michler), 1864-1945 Seton, Ernest Thompson, 1860-1946
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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arters in somelarge marsh, where they roost in the reeds and grasses,but they also resort to trees. Early in the morning theyscatter over the country in small bands, flying at a con-siderable height, and during the day we may often seethem feeding over fields and ponds or resting on waysidetelegraph wires. Late in the afternoon they begin to re-turn to their roosts. At first they fly slowly and circleabout to feed, but as the light fails they fly with increas-ing swiftness, and the last comers shoot through the duskwith incredible rapidity. These remarks apply with equal truth to all our Swal-lows ; it remains now to briefly mention the charactersby which they may be distinguished specifically. Thefour common species are figured in the frontispiece,which clearly shows most of their diagnostic marks,which are : Tail forked, Barn Swallow; forehead whit-ish, rump rusty, Cliff Swallow ; a band across the breast,plumage without metallic colors, Bank Swallow; breastpure white, Tree Swallow.
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Plate LXII. Page 169. REDSTART. Length, 5.40 inches. Adult male, band in wings ; base of tail and sidesof breast deep salmon; belly white; rest of plumage black. Adultfemale and young, similar, but salmon replaced by yellow; upper partsgrayish brown; under parts white; breast yellowish. SWALLOWS. . 159 The Barn Swallow is the most generally distributedof our Swallows, its habits of nesting in outbuildingsmaking it at home wherever they offerCheiidon it a suitable nesting place. It is about erythrogaster. seven inches long; the upper parts andsides of the breast are steel-blue, theforehead and throat chestnut, the rest of the under partspaler; the tail deeply forked and marked with white. Itslong tail is a most efficient rudder, permitting the abruptturns which make its flight more erratic than that of anyother of our Swallows. It skims low over the fields, ordarts through the village streets with a rapidity and indi-rectness which I never witness without astonishment. The Barn Swallow

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