OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS 



I have photographed the nests by putting up a ladder 

 under the eaves, driving my screw bolt into the side of 

 the barn, screwing the small camera to it and making 

 long-timed exposures, since the nests are in the shade. 

 To get the adult birds from life, I await quietly beneath 

 the nests on some low barn, with my reflecting camera 

 in hand, and snap the birds as they fly to their nests. 

 When the young are just beginning to fly they are quite 

 tame and one can often walk up close to them with the 

 camera. 



The nests of many swallows get very lousy, like the 

 Phcebes', and it was owing to this that I once had a 

 rather severe punishment for meddling with the Eave 

 Swallows when I was a boy. I wanted some swallows' 

 eggs, and, after climbing up to some nests by means of 

 a ladder, was trying to get my fingers into the narrow 

 entrance of one of them, when down came the nest and 

 smashed all over my bare head. In a moment I was 

 swarming with bird lice from head to foot and what 

 a time I did have! It was days before I got rid of them 

 all, and I was sore in every member from their bites 

 and my scratching. Fortunately it was vacation time, 

 and I was able to keep aloof from most of mankind. 



Then there is the Tree Swallow, the kind with the 

 pure white breast and glossy steel-blue back. How 

 they used to swarm on the marshes and on the telegraph 

 wires, when I was a boy, in August when they were 

 getting ready to migrate ! But now their numbers seem 

 pitifully small in comparison. Originally they nested 

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