Stories of Birds | Page 9

anger, or fear, as the case may be.
Black head--wings and tail brown--touches of white on throat--entire
breast a rusty red.--Female duller and paler in colouring, growing
almost as bright as the male in the autumn.
Food--principally insects and worms--does not disdain fruit, berries,
cherries, etc., but prefers insect food--a ravenous eater.
Nest--outer layer composed of sticks, coarse grasses, etc., seemingly
rather carelessly arranged--on this the rather large round nest is woven
with grasses--plastered with mud--lined with softer grasses.
Eggs--greenish blue--four in number--young have black spots on
breast--generally two broods reared in a season--sometimes three.

THE SWALLOW
[Illustration: The Swallow]
UNDER THE EAVES
It was the tenth day of April. Phyllis knew the date because it chanced
to be her birthday. She was just eight years old.

The sun shone very warm and bright, and the buds were growing big
and red on the horse-chestnut-trees.
"I shall go down to the brook to look for pussy-willows this afternoon,"
said the little girl.
Phyllis was sitting in the window of the barn loft with the sun shining
full upon her. All was very quiet and the little girl was half asleep.
Suddenly, with a flash of blue wings and a funny little twitter, a bird
darted right across her face. Phyllis sat up straight, and, leaning out of
the window, looked up at the eaves.
There she saw the merry twitterer, with several of his companions, who
seemed very busy and very talkative.
They darted here and there, they skimmed through the air so swiftly
that Phyllis could only catch a gleam of blue. They wheeled and circled
and darted. All the time they twittered, twittered, twittered.
"What are they up to?" said Phyllis, leaning farther out and looking
more closely.
For an instant one of the birds clung to the eaves and seemed to be
pecking away at a bit of mud which was stuck to the eaves.
Phyllis noticed the deeply forked tail of the bird. Its back and wings
and tail were steel blue. Its throat and chest were bright chestnut,
becoming paler near the back of the body.
"Oh, I know you," laughed Phyllis. "I have no fear of frightening you,
for you are a swallow.
"How does it happen that you are so fearless? You are scarcely more
afraid of us than our chickens. Why do you build so near our homes?
You are even more tame than the robin!"
The swallow twittered in a way which made Phyllis feel that he was
laughing at her. He darted so near that had she been quick enough she

might have caught him.
"We are not afraid of you!" laughed the swallow, darting close again
and then whirling away.
"What a funny bird!" said Phyllis.
In a moment the bird was back with a bit of mud in his mouth. He
plastered it up against the rest of the mud under the eaves. Then he flew
again near Phyllis.
"I suppose there was a time," said the bird, "when all swallows built
their nests on the sides and ledges of caves or cliffs. But that was
hundreds of years ago, before men came and made barns with such
comfortable places for building.
"To be sure there are swallows to this day who prefer the bank of a
brook or the side of a cave for their nesting-place. But we barn
swallows like the eaves best."
"You, too, are an early bird," said Phyllis. "Where did you spend the
winter?"
There was a great twittering among the returning swallows just then
and Phyllis was obliged to wait for a reply. Back came the bird after a
moment.
"We went south last October," he said. "Late in September we gathered
in great flocks in the marshes.
"For days we stayed there waiting for the entire company to gather. At
length on one of the blue October days we flew southward.
"There were hundreds of birds in the flock. We looked like a small
cloud, as we skimmed and darted through the air. As we flew, the flock
was a half mile long.
"We spent the winter in South America. There are delicious insects
there. But for all that we love the north country best.

"By and bye Mother Nature whispered to us. She said that it was
nest-building time in the northland. Such a twittering and fluttering
there was when this news came.
"That very afternoon we started north. Day after day we flew. We met
other great flocks as we travelled, who joined us.
"Day after day we flew northward. We did not stop to eat, but caught
our food on the wing.
"Now we lunched on moths and flies. Again we dined on grasshoppers.
Any insect foolish enough to trust itself in the air at the time we passed
served