BIRD STORIES 



looking so much like others of the swallow flock that we 

 could not tell who they were, now that they had stopped 

 coming to their nest with one open and one closed door- 

 way. 



They would have far to travel, even if they took the 

 direct over-water route, which many sorts of birds do. 

 But what is distance to Petro, whose strong wings carry 

 him lightly? A mile or a hundred or a thousand even are 

 nothing if the hunting be good. Might just as well be 

 flying south, as back and forth over the same meadow 

 the livelong day, with now and then a rest on the 

 roadside wires, which fit his little feet nearly as well as 

 the reeds of the marsh. Some people think it is for the 

 sake of the hunting that the route of the swallows lies 

 overland, for they fly by day and catch their game all 

 along the way. 



And as they journeyed, Eve and Petro and their 

 flock, south and south and south, maybe the children, 

 here and there, waved their hands to them and called, 

 "Good hunting, little friends of the air, and good luck 

 through all the winter till you come back to us again.'' 



