THE BARN SWALLOW. 277 
We may take it as an especial mark of the confiding nature of this bird 
that its nest is placed imside the barn, and we shall not be far astray so far 
as the bird’s disposition is concerned. But under primitive conditions it is a 
cave dweller, and like Phoebe, has simply done the easiest thing upon the ad- 
vent of civilization. At the head of a romantic lake in the West I once came 
upon a little grotto, which could be entered only from the water—or the air. 
In a space the size of a small room were half a dozen nests of this Swallow 
il @ Gl & @Gl 
against the 
Sir Aim it ee 
walls. Bue 
so thorough- 
ly familiar 
did the birds 
appear, that 
save for the 
cool lapping 
of the waves 
upon the 
rocks I could 
have imag- 
ined myself 
at home in 
father’s barn. 
Swallows 
are very so- 
ciable crea- 
tures, and 
after the families—one or two each season, as the case may be— have been 
successfully brought out, the birds join themselves in great roving companies 
which embrace their own and other kinds. This broad democracy of taste is 
never more clearly illustrated than when four or five sorts are seen lined up 
together on a telegraph wire. 
Taken in Delaware County. Photo by the Author. 
A BARN SWALLOW’S NEST. 
