THE WIRE-TAILED SWALLOW 155 



When once a pair of wire-tailed swallows have 

 made up their minds to nest in a certain spot they 

 are not easily deterred from carrying out their in- 

 tention. Mr. Aitken admits having on one occasion 

 removed two eggs, out of a clutch of three, but the 

 little mother sat on and hatched out the one egg 

 that remained. A man of my acquaintance, who, 

 although an egg collector, is not altogether devoid 

 of the milk of kindness, always carries about with 

 him one or two sparrow's eggs which he exchanges 

 for the birds' eggs he wishes to add to his collection. 

 One May day at Lahore this person came upon a 

 wire-tailed swallow's nest which contained one egg. 

 This he removed, and substituted for it a sparrow's 

 egg. The owners of the nest either did not, or pre- 

 tended not to, notice the exchange, and the hen laid 

 two more eggs, so that when I visited the nest three 

 days later I found that two legitimate eggs had been 

 placed beside the spurious one. The incubating bird 

 sat very tight, and allowed me to touch her, and had 

 I wished to do so I could easily have caught her ; 

 such is the strength of the incubating instinct in some 

 birds. The nest in question was built under a low 

 arch, one end of which was blocked up. The only 

 other occupants of the arch were a number of wasps. 

 Birds seem to have little or no fear of wasps. Indeed, 

 it is rather the wasps that fear the birds, which have 

 a disagreeable habit of swallowing them, notwith- 

 standing their sting and warning colouration ! Three 

 weeks later I paid another visit to the arch in question, 

 and found that the swallow's nest had been removed 



