SWALLOW, the familiar bird, Hirundo rustics, in summer ranges all over Europe, and most of Asia; in winter it migrates south, reaching India, Burma, the Malay peninsula, and the whole of Africa. The common swallow of North America is the barn-swallow, H. erythrogastra; in summer it reaches Alaska, Greenland, and Lake Baikal. The winter migration extends to South Brazil. Returning in summer about the first week in April, the English swallow usually repairs to its old nest, near the abodes of men.
During spring, the swallow sings a sweet bubbling song. The food consists entirely of insects captured on the wing. The birds also drink on the wing from the surface of ponds and lakes. The nest is formed of moist earth, which, carried to the spot in the bird's bill, is arranged and modelled with short straws or slender sticks, into the required shape, generally that of a half-saucer. The materials dry quickly into a hard crust, which is lined with soft feathers, and therein are laid from four to six white eggs, blotched and speckled with grey and orange-brown, deepening into black. Two broods are usually reared in the season. The
young, on leaving the nest, make their way to some leafless bough, whence they try their powers of flight, at first accompanying their parents in short excursions on the wing, receiving from them food until able to shift for themselves. The young birds collect in flocks and leave the country about the end of August or early in September, to be followed, after a few weeks, by their progeni tors. It was formerly believed that swallows hibernated (see Gil bert White, Natural History of Selborne). They moult their feathers in their winter quarters. The chestnut forehead and throat, the shining steel-blue upper plumage, the dusky white of the lower parts, and the deeply forked tail are familiar.
The word swallow is used for all the Hirundinidae, excepting the martin (q.v.). The family includes from 8o to ioo species and has no near allies.