I02 Birds Every Child Should Know 



age, which is plain brownish gray above, white 

 underneath, with a grayish band across the 

 breast. Only their cousin, the rough-winged 

 swallow, whose breast is brownish gray, is so 

 plainly dressed. 



The giggling twitter of the bank swallows as 

 they wheel and dart through the air above you, 

 proves that they are never too busy hunting 

 for a dinner to speak a cheerful word to their 

 friends. Year after year a colony will return to 

 a favourite bank, whose face has been honey- 

 combed with such care. Think of the labour 

 and patience required for so small a bird to dig 

 a tunnel two feet deep, more or less! Some 

 nests have been placed as far as four feet from 

 the entrance. You are not surprised at the big 

 kingfisher, who also tunnels a hole in a bank for 

 his family, because his long, strong bill makes 

 digging comparatively easy ; but for the small- 

 billed, weak-footed swallow, the work must be 

 difficult indeed. What a pity they cannot hire 

 moles to make the tunnels with their strong, 

 flat, spade -like feet. No wonder the birds be- 

 come attached to the tunnels that have cost so 

 much labour. When there are no longer any 

 baby swallows on the heaps of twigs, grass and 

 feathers at the end of them, the birds use them 

 as resting places by day as well as by night until 

 it is time to gather in vast flocks and speed away 

 to the tropics. 



