OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS 



with such a swarm catching flies all day about our 

 place you couldn't make me believe that there were not 

 less flies than there would have been without them." 



"Don't they catch other insects beside flies?" asked 

 Ned, becoming evidently interested. "Yes," I told 

 him, "they are great on mosquitoes and about every 

 sort of small flying insect. The Government ornithol- 

 ogists of the Biological Survey say that in the South 

 swallows feed upon the dreaded boll weevil, and they 

 are getting up a crusade to try to protect the swallows 

 and introduce them to regions from which they have been 

 driven out. One good method is to kill off the English 

 Sparrows around their colonies, and also to put up 

 suitable boxes for the kinds that use them. Of course 

 boys ought not to disturb them, and the owners of barns 

 where they build should welcome them, even though 

 they make some dirt to clean up. They are well worth 

 any trouble they may cause." 



After this little talk about swallows, Ned helped me 

 drive out the flies so that there would be none of them 

 on my bird article, and I went to work again in peace. 

 Besides helping me in this swallow-like occupation of 

 chasing flies, Ned promised to go with me that after- 

 noon and help me photograph a nice Barn Swallows' 

 nest with four nearly fledged young, which were now 

 about to leave. 



It was a pretty hard proposition, Ned thought, when 

 he saw the nest, on the projecting end of a timber inside 

 a barn, away up under the roof where it was quite darlj 



179 



