Length: About 6 inches; one inch smaller than the barn swallow, and two inches smaller than the martin.
General Appearance: A multi-colored swallow—a sort of combination of barn swallow and martin, with areas and patches of dark blue, chestnut, gray, and white, and bright reddish-brown upper tail-coverts, that differentiate it from the other swallows.
Male and Female: Forehead creamy white, head bluish-black; throat and cheeks reddish-brown; a brownish ring about the neck shading to gray; back bluish-black streaked with white; breast gray with a wash of brown, and a blue-black patch where the throat joins the breast; wings and tail brownish; tail only slightly forked.
Note: A harsher, less musical note than that of the barn swallow and martin.
Habitat: Meadows and marshes. These swallows formerly nested in cliffs; now they build under eaves of buildings.
Nests: Curiously shaped pouches of mud that make one think of protuberant knot-holes, or of flasks made of skin. The nests vary with the shape of the places to which they are fastened. Eave swallows also nest in colonies.
Range: North America. Breed from central Alaska and north-central Canada over nearly all the United States except Florida and the Rio Grande Valley. They probably winter in Brazil and Argentina.
Mr. Forbush writes about the Cliff or Eave Swallow as follows:
“When the first explorers reached the Yellowstone and other western rivers, swallows were found breeding on the precipitous banks. As settlers gradually worked their way westward, the swallows found nesting-places under the eaves of their rough buildings. In these new breeding-places they were better protected from the elements and their enemies than on their native cliffs and so the Cliff Swallow became the Eave Swallow, and, following the settlements, rapidly increased in numbers and worked eastward.”[96] These swallows were very numerous fifty years ago. It is now generally conceded that English sparrows are largely responsible for their decrease. It is greatly to be deplored, for swallows add much to the charm of out-door life, and subtract many annoyances in the form of insect pests, especially flies and mosquitoes.
