AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



out of sight. The arrival home of a pair of barn-nesters 

 was duly noted how they flew on an arrow-straight 

 course, without abating a jot of speed, cleanly through 

 a small hole in a board under the barn's eave, to the 

 old, crumbled stucco nest on a beam, and by a joyous 

 twittering announced themselves as the first swallows 

 to return to the farm. With their advent, Spring seemed 

 to come at last. 



A STANDING mystery of April is the way the swallows 

 come and vanish. Cuckoos and swallows 

 The may have been seen in places for a fort- 



Swallows' night, while many woods are still waiting to 

 Vanishing have their echoes stirred by the cuckoo's 

 Trick call, and many villages have caught but 



glimpses of vanguard swallows: the main 

 body still delaying. Every year it is anxiously awaited 

 by naturalists concerned by the grevious thinning of 

 swallow ranks through many past summers. The 

 vanishing trick is thus explained: swallows whose 

 nesting-place is distant from water retire for a while, 

 after reaching home in Spring, and again before 

 setting sail in Autumn, to congregate at the nearest 

 river, moat or pond. Mid-May is time enough for their 

 egg-laying. 



HOUSE-MARTINS returned a few days ago to some of their 

 village homes, and were seen spending a 

 The joyous hour or two judging by their ani- 



Martlets' mated twittering inspecting their stucco 

 Return castles under the eaves. The inspection over, 

 they retired, as if to discuss future building 

 plans and rest awhile before seriously taking up house- 

 So 



