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THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



A Tree Swallow's Unique Home. 



Curious nesting sites are constantly 

 teing discovered which bring to our 

 minds the strong individuality occas- 

 ionally shown by some of our native 

 iDirds. We have previously noted in 

 this department several such instances, 

 but the accompanying illustratioii 

 probably shows a situation which is 

 unique for a swallow's home. 



In Canton, Massachusetts, on the 

 line of the Blue Hill Street Railway, are 



THE CURIOUS NESTING SITE OF THE 

 SWALLOWS. 



signal telephone boxes at the various 

 turnouts, as is the general custom along 

 suburban electric lines, and in Box 24 

 of this line a pair of white-bellied, or 

 tree, swallows has nested during the 

 past season, paying apparently not the 

 slightest attention to the close proxi- 

 mity of passers-by. 



These birds gained entrance to the 

 signal box through a knot-hole in the 

 door; this being shown in the picture 

 just below and to the right of the key- 

 hole. This entrance hole was one and 

 one-half inches in diameter and but 



fifty-one inches from the ground, the 

 box itself being about three feet in 

 height and eighteen inches square. In 

 the rear left-hand corner at the bottom 

 of the box was placed the nest, which 

 was composed of dried grasses and 

 lined with feathers. Notwithstanding 

 the fact that this box was opened and 

 the telephone used at half-hourly pe- 

 riods throughout the day, these birds 

 continued to remain until their brood 

 was reared, five eggs being laid and 

 four being hatched, and brought forth 

 l)y the faithful and undaunted little 

 mother. 



Strange it is that such a location 

 should be chosen by birds which nearly 

 always build their nests in the vicinity 

 of water, selecting for this purpose a 

 discarded woodpecker hole or natural 

 cavity high up in the dead stub of an 

 old willow, or in other convenient trees 

 bordering the ponds and marshes or 

 overhanging the river banks, where 

 they skim the surface of the water and 

 the lowlands, finding abundance of 

 food among the hordes of insects which 

 there abound. 



A Sound from the Marsh. 



V,Y W. I. BEECROFT, GREAT BARRIXGTON, 

 MASSACHUSETTS. 



Our most unusual experiences come 

 unexpectedly. It was in this manner 

 that I made my most interesting obser- 

 vation among the birds, an observation 

 that has been accorded to but few. It 

 was just at sunset. I was taking an 

 after supper stroll along the railroad 

 that runs through the marshes at the 

 bottom of the Hoosac Valley in the 

 Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts, when 

 I heard, off in the marsh, a peculiar 

 sound that I recognized at once, from 

 descriptions that I had read, as the 

 notes of the American bitten, some- 

 times called stake driver, marsh hen or 

 meadow hen or mud hen. All the nat- 

 uralistic temperament in me was 

 aroused. I was filled with the desire to 

 see and hear the bird at close range. 

 Stalking a bittern in the tall grass and 

 weeds of a marsh interspersed with 

 (dumps of alders and abounding in mud 

 holes and water holes is no pastime for 

 any except the enthusiastic naturalist. 

 I will leave the details of that stalk to 

 the reader's imagination. But after 

 getting as near as possible without ex- 



