FAMILIAR BIRDS 



keeping. They seem to bring with them a train of sum- 

 mery ideas. Their fleet forms and flashing white rumps 

 bring life and movement to the sleepy village street, as 

 they bring welcome music, with their melodious warb- 

 ling and the crooning songs they sing in the nests. 



THE " screechers " are due to arrive within a week, 

 the sooty, scythe-shaped swifts, well- 

 The named, being the swiftest of our birds, 



Screeching pursuing their headlong course sixteen 

 Brother- hours a day, whether round the old church 

 hood tower or a thousand feet high. The swift is 



the swallow's cousin in the eyes of country 

 people. But he is no relation. The swallow sings, for 

 one distinction, and sings as melodiously as a garden- 

 warbler, whereas the swift only screeches. The swallow, 

 again, perches safely on a telegraph-wire, while swifts 

 cannot perch, and even collect nesting-material on the 

 wing. 



FAMILIAR BIRDS 



ROBINS have all been migrating through the past few 

 days. The familiar garden robin, who has 

 The haunted the lawn by a house-window 



Robin's through the winter, paying for his crumbs 

 Nest by song, has flown to the orchard, and 



there is making his nest in the ditch-bank, 

 among the white violets. By one infallible sign an 

 expert on birds' nests always knows how to find any 

 robin's nest in a bank the sign of dead leaves at the 

 entrance, spread like a doormat. The leaves are actually 

 laid in place before the nest itself is woven in a 



