The Barn Swallow
Length six to seven inches.
Upper parts shining steel-blue, but the face buff.
Under parts rich buff, brick-red on the throat, where there is also a steel-blue collar.
Tail very long and deeply forked, with the side-feathers narrow, and some white spots on them.
Song a musical laugh, heard when the birds fly low over meadows and ponds.
Nest a sort of bracket, made of little mud balls and straw stuck on a beam in a hayloft. Eggs white, with plenty of reddish-brown spots.
A Summer Citizen in most of the United States.
A Sky Sweeper of the very first rank.