72 BIRDS OF THE WEST 



BANK SWALLOW. 



Perfect little darters and skimmers through the air, they 

 seem to be letting the wind toss them about and play with them 

 while they abandon themselves to the fun of it, yet they are 

 gathering a good square meal of flying insects. 



They have learned the protective value of digging little holes 

 in the side of a sand bank where hardly anything can reach them 

 but feathered enemies and if they are larger than the swallows 

 they will find great difficulty in entering the front door of the 

 little cave-dweller's home. 



The inevitable English sparrows make good use of these 

 cyclone cellars in bad weather and often make their winter homes 

 within them. At the remote end of each cave, which is usually 

 the depth of an arm 's length, they place a bit of hay and swallow- 

 like line the nest with a liberal supply of feathers. Their eggs 

 are white, very thin shelled as are those of all swallows, and the 

 swallow crop is a pretty sure one. 



The swallows are communistic and you will find colonies of 

 them in railroad cuts, in sand banks and in the sides of cliffs. 

 Certainly he has the best of the others of his kin in respect of 

 his nesting but they are nearer than he is to their food supply for 

 they keep closer to the cattle sheds, but what to a swallow is the 

 flight of a mile? 



If science were to give medals to the birds that live 

 "For the heaven that smiles above them 

 And the good that they can do" 



I have no doubt that the little swallows would each wear a gold 

 medal about his pretty throat. The boll-weevil, the dreaded 

 stegomyia and others of his like find in the swallows their im- 

 placable foes. Already the cry has come from the south "Save 

 the swallows. 



