BIRD STORIES 



and Petro squeaked pleasantly for joy when they chose 

 their building site, undisturbed by the ladder that was 

 soon put near, and unafraid of the people who climbed 

 up to watch them at their work. They were too happily 

 busy to worry, and besides, there is a tradition that men 

 folk and swallow folk are friendly, each to the other. 



How old this tradition is, we do not know; but we do 

 know that swallows of one kind and another were wel- 

 comed in the Old World in the old days to heathen 

 temples before there were Christian churches, and that 

 to-day in the New World they play in and out of the 

 dark arches in the great churches of far Brazil and flash 

 across the gilding of the very tabernacle, reminding us 

 of the passage in the Psalms where it is written that the 

 swallow hath found a nest for herself, where she may 

 lay her young — even thine altars, Lord of Hosts ! 



So it is not strange that far and wide over the world 

 people have the idea that swallows bring luck to the 

 house. I think so myself, don't you? — that it is very 

 good fortune, indeed, to have these birds of friendly and 

 confiding ways beneath our shelter. 



Of course the ancestors of cliff swallows had not 

 known the walls and roofs of man so long as other kinds 

 of swallows; but the associations of one short century 

 had been pleasant enough to call forth many cheerful 

 squeakings of joy, just like those of Eve and Petro that 



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