SWALLOW - 6 reference results
swallow, common name for small perching birds of almost worldwide distribution. There are about 100 species of swallows, including the martins, which belong to the same family. Swallows have long, narrow wings, forked tails, and weak feet. They are extremely graceful in flight, making abrupt changes in speed and direction as they feed on the wing, catching insects in their wide mouths. Their plumage is blue or black with a metallic sheen, generally darker above than below. They nest in flocks in barns, sheds, chimneys, or other secluded places. The common American barn swallow, Hirundo rustica, is steel-blue above and pinkish beneath, with a rusty forehead and deeply forked tail. The purple martin, Progne subis, is deep violet with black wings and tail. Other American swallows, all with shallowly forked tails, are the cliff, or eave, swallow (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota), which builds jug-shaped nests of mud and clay lined with grass and feathers; the bank swallow or sand martin, which burrows into shore banks to nest; and the tree (Iridoprocne bicolor) and rough-winged (Stelgidopteryx ruficollis) swallows. The so-called chimney swallow is a swift. Swallows are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Aves, order Passeriformes, family Hirundinidae.
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chimney swallow: see swift.
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Licensed from Columbia University Press
Licensed from Columbia University Press
Richards, Ellen Henrietta Swallow, 1842-1911, American chemist, educator, and organizer of the home economics movement, b. Dunstable, Mass., grad. Vassar, 1870. In 1870 she began the study of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, being the first woman to enter that school, and from 1884 until her death was an instructor there in sanitary chemistry. She became a pioneer in the systematizing and simplifying of housekeeping to free women for other activities. The last 30 years of her life were given to the development of what she called euthenics, "the science of controlled environment." With the spur of her enthusiasm and scientific knowledge, the teaching of home economics made rapid progress in the first decade of the 20th cent. She was an organizer and first president (1908) of the American Home Economics Association. Her publications include Euthenics (1910) and Conservation by Sanitation (1911).
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Licensed from Columbia University Press
Licensed from Columbia University Press
Common swallow (Hirundo rustica).
Learn more about swallow with a free trial on Britannica.com.
Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
Any of about 40 species (subfamily Sterninae, family Laridae) of slender, web-footed, migratory water birds found almost worldwide. Species vary from 8 to 22 in. (20–55 cm) long. The plumage is white, black-and-white, or black; the sharply pointed bill is black, red, or yellow; and the feet are red or black. Most species have long, pointed wings and a forked tail. Terns plunge into the water to catch crustaceans and fishes. They breed colonially, usually on the ground on islands. Seealso Arctic tern.
Learn more about tern with a free trial on Britannica.com.
Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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