OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS 



misdemeanors in the multitude of flies and mosquitoes 

 which they destroy. 



It is a hard matter to photograph a nest, owing to 

 the narrowness of the chimneys. But I was fortunate 

 in happening upon a very peculiar nesting site. A 

 pair of swifts chose to build in a barn. Up near the 

 top of the hayloft, near an open window, for the past 

 three years they have stuck their curious nest to the 

 plain board wall inside. The first year they raised but 

 one youngster and the next season four. The third 

 season they built the nest, but for some reason did not 

 lay the eggs there. 



I photographed this nest in the same way that I 

 photographed the young Barn Swallows, with the help 

 of Ned, the ladder and the mirrors. The second year 

 I paid my visit when the young had just crawled from 

 the nest and were clinging to the boards near it like so 

 many bats. One flew off, but I photographed the 

 other three, and then put one back in the nest and took 

 a picture of it there. After that I carried one outdoors 

 in the light and took some pictures showing in detail 

 how they cling and brace themselves with the tail. 



A pair of them build every year in one of my chimneys, 

 and this year, for some reason, the eggs did not hatch. 

 Ned wanted to get them as curiosities, so he made a 

 small scoop net at the end of his butterfly net pole and 

 succeeded in landing the nest and two out of four of 

 the eggs. 



A well-known naturalist once told me that it seemed 

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