YOUNG SWALLOWS ON TELEGRAPH WIRES.
Its nest is generally built in a chimney or on a rafter in a barn, stable, or shed, although I have seen it plastered against a smooth whitewashed wall, on a dangling tendril of ivy that had grown through the roof of a shed, under a stone bridge, inside an old limekiln, on a ledge under the eaves of a shed, on a picture-frame, and inside an old tennis shoe left on a ledge in a boat-house. It is made of pellets of mud generally intermixed with straws and lined with dead grass and feathers. The structure differs in shape according to the site selected for it. Frequently it is formed like half or two-thirds of a saucer when plastered against a wall or rafter, but when on a flat surface the outside consists of a circular wall of mud.
NEWLY-FLEDGED SWALLOW.
The eggs, numbering from four to six, are white, spotted and blotched with dark, reddish-brown, and underlying specks of grey.
This bird’s song is one of the most joyous and spontaneous in all the realms of Nature, and the poet might well say:
“Thou hast no sadness in thy song.”
It is uttered both whilst the melodist is flashing at lightning speed through the air and at rest on some house-top or tree, and is an exceedingly sweet and exhilarating warble frequently repeated.
During dull weather, when swallows fly low, they utter a note like wet wet, and their alarm cry has been fittingly written down as feetafeet-feetafetit. Inside buildings they also use another, which is a clear, ringing pink pink.