These characteristics, as well as their appearance—slender, long-winged, dark-colored—belong to the swallows and martins all over the world; and they are alike in all countries in their fearless fondness for making close acquaintance with mankind when he dwells in settled homes.
Common Swallows
Naturally, these birds are inhabitants of caves and rocky cliffs, or of hollow trees; but, like the swifts, the moment a man builds a house or barn in Europe, or Asia, or South America, there certain swallows are sure to come to live with him, just as they do around our village and farm houses in North America. Hence the English people call their common species house-swallow, and we give the name barn-swallow to our similar one. This is the very common species with the long, deeply forked tail, which sets its nest of mud and straw on the beams of our barns or plasters it against the walls or roof, always inside the building. Almost equally widespread and numerous is another barn-loving kind, distinguished by its short square tail and its habit of forming bulb-shaped nests wholly of mud, and of placing them in rows outside the building, close up under the eaves. These last are better known as eaves-swallows.
GAUDY TROPICAL BIRDS
1. Ara; Macaw. 2. Rose-Crested Cockatoo. 3. Senegal Parrot.
4. Mexican Toucan. 5. African Hornbill.
Well-known Martins
Martin is a name applied to various swallows, but with us it denotes the big purple one which in the warmer parts of the country gladly takes possession of the pretty bird-houses which many persons set on poles in their gardens.
Another smaller, sooty-brown martin, is the sand-martin, or bank-swallow, which differs from all the rest in placing its eggs on a little bed of straw and feathers at the end of a long burrow which it bores into the face of a cliff of earth beside some river, where usually a large company live as happy neighbors. This species is one of the few birds known almost all over the world.