32 TRAMPS WITH AN ENTHUSIAST. 



Sometimes, on that lonely road, wliich I 

 passed over several times a day, I was treated 

 to a fairy-like sight. It was when a recent 

 shower had left little puddles in the clay road, 

 and the eave swallows from a house across the 

 meadow came down to procure material for their 

 adobe structures. Most daintily they alighted 

 on their tiny feet around the edge, holding up 

 their tails like wrens, lest they should soil a 

 feather of their plumage, and raising both wings 

 over their backs like butterflies, fluttering them 

 all the time, as if to keep their balance and 

 partly hold them up from the ground, — a lovely 

 sight which I enjoyed several times. 



Under the eaves of the distant house, where 

 the nests of these birds were placed, and which 

 I visited later, were evidences of tragedies. The 

 whole length of the cornice on the back side of 

 the house showed marks of many nests, alid there 

 were left at that time but four, two close together 

 at each end of the line. I cannot say positively 

 that the nests had fallen while in use, but in an- 

 other place, a mile away, I know of a long row 

 having fallen, with young in, every one of whom 

 was killed. Where was the "instinct" of the 

 birds whose hopes thus perished ? And was the 

 trouble with their material or with their situa- 

 tion ? I noticed this : that the nests had abso- 

 lutely nothing to rest on, not even a projecting 



