| Show Out of Doors in the West Sketches of Natural in the Rocky Mountain Plateau Edited by J. H. Professor of Nature Study In the of Utah Habits and Distribution of the Swallow Family The welcome guest of settled The has come at Just at when thrushes s I saw her dash with rapid wing And hailed her as she summer attach To my reed roof your nest of And let my ear your music Low twittering underneath the thatch At the gray dawn of C. THE TREE The white-bellied or tree swallow has its under parts pure upper parts burnished steel The lores space between the bill and the are deep the wings and tail slightly tinged with These swallows likewise make their nests in usually in the holes of and line them with leaves and The eggs are from four to five in number and are pure white in These pretty birds live all over I have seen them high in the Wasatch and Uintah gliding over the mountain and frequently alighting in the tall where they had their The shining white breast and the bluish-green back show conspicuously in They seem fearless and familiar in perching near the flying in and often feeding their young in the and describing curious figures as if going through a regular and well learned There is a close resemblance between the violet green and the white-bellied swallow in general and particularly their mode of One curiously misleading circumstance is that both these birds appear to have a white band nearly across the base of the Yet this part is like the rest of the upper parts in color a beautiful steel the fluffy white feathers of the flanks lie over the rump during sometimes meeting over the root of the appearance of and white is At Fort in I made quite a study of these whose exquisite beauty could hardly fail to touch even the most insensible Habits and As these swallows skim over the meadows and coun- try at large in their circling flight it i easy distinguish from the barn swallow by the mo angular course of the Toward they either in the marsh reeds or in the low bushes or some region of ponds to At dawn they arise like clouds from these During swallows near fact that gave rise to the absurd old idea that they dive into the water and spend the winter in the muddy bottom in a state of Although it is one of the most beneficial of the swallow the tree has been persecuted by the English sparrow until it has entirely abandoned many districts where formerly it Unless a systematic effort be made to reduce the number of sparrows and to protect from invasion the boxes put up for the occupancy of the tree swallow cannot reoccupy the old territory from which it has been or even long hold its present An energetic war on the English sparrow and the careful protection of the swallow homes in a few years would result in a complete change of the Not many years the tree swallow was distributed in the northeast as far as and could be found nesting in the major part of but now Bank Swallow or Sand Martin it has become much localized as a summer on account of the difficulty of finding suitable nesting Like the bluebirds and this swallow's natural home is a as comes under the hollow trees quickly except in swampy where the inaccessibility as well as the half-rotten condition of the timber has saved Wright remarks that in many the tree like the purple will adapt itself to artificial hollow in a or even a suspended for the unlike this latter or the barn the tree swallow does not seem to be to any great extent in the nesting The coming of the English sparrow has been as disastrous to the semi-domesticated tree swallow as to the martins and The or rather is made of dried grass and a few put together without the plaster used by the barn and the half-dozen like those of the woodpeckers eggs are paper-white Advocates of the color-protection theory hold that in hole they do not need since the eggs are a the of color to conceal and are tree swallow is a notable insect-eater and has many attractive domestic it is not in the nest-ing but in the long period of the fall that we are the most familiar with this spread as it is from July to late is one of the great spectacular features of bird though the large flocks are made up of both barn and bank and cliff the tree swallows are greatly in the Cliff Swallows Farmers generally are very kindly disposed toward the cliff even when they hang their mud nests on the barn or under eaves of Where-ever their spring coming is eagerly looked for and they are especially welcomed not only do they favor the people with their cheerful company and provide especial joy for the children because of their but the flies and mosquitoes are greatly diminished hy their A person who watched for half an hour one nest in which there were four young found that the parents returned to the nest so each time bringing two or three that about insects would be consumed daily by that one swallow t The Clay-Built They like sticky clay for building and will come in f quick succession to any exposed clay fluttering feet ready to settle lightly on the J soft The moment the feet touch the ground the body and tail are well up so as not to soil these sleek while the wings held out straight to prevent the feet from going too The clay is gathered in and the swallow is each busy and mindful only of his own but with an occasional where two want the same Each calls softly on coming or going and all seem The nests are none too well fastened to the and a heavy rainstorm at the wrong season destroys the eggs or To Restore These These curious pouch-shaped mud structures of the j cliff or eave attached under eaves or to the face of are a sight familiar enough in the North- ern and Western but in the cities they have The English sparrow persecutes also the cliff hence in the the bird is much common than Under the mistaken idea that cliff swallows are not desirable the especially when near are often the birds driven All birds are more or less subject to especially when but the i are not bedbugs nor the kinds obnoxious to and no one should banish the swallows for fear of trouble from this In Germany the presence of swallows around houses is so much desired that artificial nests made of clay or other material are put up in order to attract birds by saving them the labor of constructing their own No doubt our own cliff swallows would be quick to respond to a similar offer of ready-made rent and in this way the range of this extremely useful species might be materially The cliff swallow is one of the most indefatigable insect destroyers and every motive of patriotism and humanity should prompt communities among which they live to protect and foster them in every possible Once Numerous In the writer's boyhood days the cliff swallow nested in great numbers the eaves of houses in Salt Lake especially about Salt Lake The sparrows have driven them from all the towns at the present time and they now nest in colonies out in the country on the face of their nests are frequently raided by the brutal which eat their eggs and destroy their It is a great loss to be deprived of the services of these insect which destroyed the mosquitoes and winged flies by the millions in the There a common prejudice against because it was thought by some that they would infest buildings and stock with but the bird parasites will not live on mammals and bird lice need never be feared as they Avill not live human The cliff swallow has a buffy or brown the back and breast glossy throat and collar sides and rest of under-parts The nests under the Theater eaves were often in the shape of a gourd and were made of pellets of mud mixed with a few straws and lined with The three to five eggs are white speckled with brown and Building of Eave are with the architecture of these masons if any be the books will remove their But there are many interesting perhaps insufficiently elucidated in our standard It is generally understood that the most perfect that a nest fully finished and furnished with a resembling a tilted such a or is the typical indicating the primitive fashion of But I am by no means satisfied of Remembering that the swallows are all natural we may infer that their early order of architecture was a or which defended and perhaps enlarged a natural cavity on the face of the Traces of such work are still evident enough in those frequent instances in which they take a hole in a such as one left by a missing and cover it in either with a regular vestibule or a mere cup-lime rim of It was probably not until they had served a long apprenticeship that they acquired the sufficient skill to stick a nest against a perfectly smooth vertical The Bottle-Shaped running on of a neck to the as seen in those nests we- consider the most seems to merely represent a surplusage of building energy like that which induces a House for to accumulate a preposterous quantity of trash in its It is the rule when the nest is built any exposed But since the swallows taken to building under or other projections affording a degree of the even the simply globular seem to be going out of and thousands of nests are built as open as those of the barn being simply half-cups attached to the and in fact chiefly distinguished from those of barn swallows by containing little or no I suppose this to be a piece of atavism a reversion to primitive The barn and eave lows are our only kinds that do not go into a hole or its equivalent and the indication of shelter or cov- in all cases being secured by the roof itself beneath which they the special roofing of each nest becomes Hence the open cups these now Pleasant To is pleasant to watch the establishment and progress of a colony of these Suddenly they appear quite animated and enthusiastic but undecided as yet an impromptu debating society on the with a good deal of sawing the air to before final resolutions are The plot some swallows are seen clinging to the slightest inequalities beneath the others are couriers to and from the nearest others again alight like feathers by the water's and all are in a twitter of closely these curious sons and daughters of Israel at their ingenious trade of making we may chance to see a circle of them gathered around the margin of the insecurely balanced on their tiny tilting their tails and ducking their heads to pick up little of These are rolled around in their mouths till and made like a quid into globular with a curious working of their then off go the and stick pellet against the as carefully as ever a about to spin a deposited his chew on the The birds work they are busy as and a steady stream flows back and forth for several hours a with intervals for rest and when the swallows swarm about promiscuously In an incredibly short the basement of the nest is laid and the whole form becomes clearly the mud dries and there is a standing This is soon occupied by one of the probably the who now stays 1 at home welcome her mate with redoubled joy and ecstatic quivering of the as he onus fresh which the pair in closest In three or i dispose-to their entire the deed is the house is and nothing remains but to furnish The poultry yard is and laid under contribution o not are string-swallows very particular-may be and then the female does the rest of the by her own particular Not just at this a man demolishes the whole comes with a and or the enfant terrible of the premises and removes the eggs to enrich his sanded tray of like for his But more or a tom-cat reaches that in due season probably matters are so propitious the nest decants a full brood of swallows and I wish that nothing more harmful ever came out of the The Purple The Purple Martin is a swallow that is not purple at all but glossy the wings and tail darker and with some sooty-gray feathers beneath the The female has grayish forehead and and streaked with The western Purple Martin is but the female has pale brown and grayish feathers and the bend of the wing mottled with the under-parts and collar grayish belly pure It is mostly west of our range upon the Pacific The purple martin is the largest and in some respects the most beautiful of all our swallow and is the most local and the least The gov- eminent circular states that in New and perhaps in most of the Northern States this fine bird is steadily diminishing in The English sparrow often takes possession of its ruthlessly kills the young martins or throws out the and usually succeeds in routing the colony and appropriating the When measures are not taken to abate the sparrow nuisance in the immediate vicinity of martin the usual result is that the martins are forced to abandon their The habit of up houses for the of martin colonies is not as common in the North as it formerly and to this indifference to the martins' to persecution by the and to losses due to the prevalence of cold storms during the nesting no is due the present decrease in number of this fine The Bank 1 The bank swallow has a very small bill and short It is sooty black in under white with a sooty band across the chest and It excavates holes in sandbanks for its nest and has three to six I- This nests as its name in sand banks in holes of its own Some farmers in the Northern States take special pains to protect their i from the Vi o colonies of bank swallows marauding bo Some even take pains to and the prowling suitable banks on their farms and devote them of the Gravel to the exclusive use and sand banks are so numerous throughout the in New that at trifling expense the number of colonies of bank swallows may be vastly to the advantage of every North and and to that of every nature lover as The The rough winged swallow is dull grayish brown 1 above with darker wings and under parts belly and under-tail coverts Rough-Winged Swallow has been traced through Mexico to though some of the quotations of may actually refer to other In the and Western the dispersion of the species is calling for no but the various records from the West may be profitably saw it in numbers in Southern Colorado during and also about the pueblo of in New it was still more abundant at and other points in the same general where also Ridgeway attests its presence in great In some it was the most numerous representative of the family next after the Cliff and White-Bellied Other records might be but I have given enough to show that the Rough-Winged swallow is generally distributed over the United excepting most of New but not much further agreeing in this respect with the Violet-green and next after this more restricted in its habitat than any other swallow of North Nests of birds seldom excavate holes for preferring to take some suitable cavity and refit it to their they are often found in deserted Kingfishers' where the nest is placed a foot or so from the They will on finding a decayed root of sufficient size leading in from their favorite sand remove the soft following the winding of the root to a depth of about two where they place the nest in an enlarged Besides they like to build in holes in near In the few observed instances of their digging a hole for they worked in rather a slovenly making holes larger than appeared and invariably circular at the bank swallows holes on the contrary being quite symmetrically with the longer axis and no larger than required for the free passage of the birds too small to admit the while the rough wings' nests may usually be reached without except when built in in which latter case the birds may pass through a crevice barely wide enough to admit them providing the cavity within be suitable for a |
