30 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



began, and even after it had grown dark I could 

 almost always see the outline of the bird's head 

 and beak, defined against the sky, as it sat perched 

 upon the bare, thin point of an elder-stump, 

 from which it generally flew to feed the chicks. 

 Never was this outline broken by any projection, 

 as it must have been had an insect of any size 

 been held in the bill. A more conclusive argu- 

 ment is, I think, that the chicks were generally 

 fed, in the way I have described, several times in 

 succession. They would always come out from 

 under their mother, as the evening approached, and, 

 jumping up at her bill, try to insist on her feeding 

 them. Whether she ever fed them, then, before 

 leaving the nest, I cannot, for certain, say. I do 

 not think she did, nor can I see how she could have 

 had anything in her crop after sitting, fasting, all 

 day. As a rule, at any rate, she first flew off, and 

 fed them only on her return. When she flew, I 

 used to watch her for as long as I could, and would 

 sometimes see her, as well as the other one, circling 

 and twisting about in the air, in pursuit of insects, 

 as it appeared to me. I never saw any insects, 

 however, as I should have done had they been of 

 any size, nor did I ever see anything, on the part 

 of the birds, that looked like a snatch in the air 

 with open bill. But if insects were being caught at 

 all, the bill must, of course, have been opened to 

 some extent, and this shows, I think — for what else 

 could the birds have been doing ^ — that it is very 

 difficult in the dusk of evening to see it opened, 

 even when it is. For my own part, I have found 

 it difficult — not to say impossible — to see swallows 



