Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/452

416 to me. I saw them in the Gut of Cansso on the 10th of June, and on the Magdeleine Islands on the 13th of the same month. They were oc- cupied in building their nests in the open cupola of a church. Not one, however, was observed in Labrador, although many Sand Martins were seen there. On our return, I found at Newfoundland some of the pre- sent species, and of the Cliff Swallow, all of which were migrating south- ward on the 14th of August, when Fahrenheit's thermometer stood at 41°.

In spring, the Barn Swallow is welcomed by all, for she seldom ap- pears before the final melting of the snows and the commencement of mild weather, and is looked upon as the harbinger of summer. As she never commits depredations on any thing that men consider as their own, every body loves her, and, as the child was taught by his parents, so the man teaches his offspring, to cherish her. About a week after the arrival of this species, and when it has akeady resorted to its wonted haunts, examined its last year's tenement, or made choice of a place to which it may securely fix its nest, it begins either to build or to deposit its eggs.

The nest is attached to the side of a beam or rafter in a barn or shed imder a bridge, or sometimes even in an old well, or in a sink hole, such as those found in the Kentucky barrens. Whenever the situation is convenient and affords sufficient room, you find several nests together, and in some instances I have seen seven or eight within a few inches of each other; nay, in some large barns I have counted forty, fifty, or more. The male and the female both betake themselves to the borders of creeks, rivers, ponds, or lakes, where they form small pellets of mud or moist earth, which they carry in their bill to the chosen spot, and place against the wood, the wall, or the rock, as it may chance to be. They dispose of these pellets in regular layers, mixing, especially with the lower, a considerable quantity of long slender grasses, which often dangle for several inches beneath the bottom of the nest. The first layers are short, but the rest gradually increase in length, as the birds proceed upwards with their work, until they reach the top, when the fabric resembles the section of an inverted cone, the length being eight inches, and the greatest diameter six, while that from the wall or other flat surface to the outside of the shell is three and a half, and the latter is fully an inch thick. I have never observed in a newly finished nest, the expansion of the upper layer mentioned by Wilson, although I have frequently seen it in one that has been repaired or enlarged. The average weight of such a nest