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world a class of emigrants whose human prototypes the native American can barely withstand.

Cliff Swallow; Eaves Swallow: Petrochelidon lunifrons.

Length: 5 5.50 inches.

Male and Female: Above brilliant steel-blue; beneath dusky white. Sides of head, throat and chin rufous. Wings and tail glossed with black. Bill dark; feet brown. White, crescent-like frontlet, hence its specific name lunifrons, from luna, the moon, and frons, front.

Song: A squeak, more than a twitter.

Season: Early April to late August.

Breeds: In colonies, raising two broods a year.

Nest: Either a bracket, or gourd-shaped, with the opening at the neck; of mud, with straws and feather-lined; placed under eaves or rocky cliffs.

Eggs: 4-6, white with brown and purple markings.

Range: North America at large, south in winter to Brazil and Paraguay.

This familiar Swallow, which we in the East know as the bird who builds its much-modified, gourd-shaped nest under the eaves of old houses, is in the West wholly a cliff-dweller. With us the shape of the nest depends greatly upon the site chosen, many nests being merely elongated brackets. When it builds under the protection of shelving cliffs, the nests are of the typical bottle shape, and are often squeezed as closely together as the cells of a wasp nest.

This species is almost as brilliantly coloured as the Barn Swallow, but lacks the grace in flying which the sharply forked tail gives to the latter. Like all its tribe, it feeds upon insects, which it takes on the wing.

Barn Swallow: Chelidon erythrogaster.

Plate 24. 24. Fig. 2.

Length: Variable, 6-7 inches.

Male and Female: Glistening steel-blue back, tail deeply forked. Brow and under parts rich buff, which warms almost to

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