THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



year, when their nest and eggs were buried by the 

 hay-gatherers, have established themselves in a 

 swallow's old nest far above any possibility of 

 being engulfed by the rising tide of hay. They have 

 evidently refurnished the nest, but its exterior is 

 quite destitute of the moss with which they always 

 face their structures. I see the row of heads of the 

 young above the brim, as I see a row of heads of 

 young swallows above the brim of their nest. The 

 swallows evidently look upon the phoebes as in- 

 truders. Maybe the fact that the phcebes have 

 appropriated a swallow's last year's nest rankles a 

 little. At any rate, many times during the day the 

 male swallow swoops spitefully down at the phcebes 

 as they sit upon the beams hesitating in my pres- 

 ence to approach their nest with food in their 

 beaks. 



The swallow is not armed for battle; in both beak 

 and claw he is about the weakest of the weak; only 

 in speed and skill of wing is he almost unrivaled, 

 and he flashes those long, slender, sabre-colored 

 wings about the heads of his plain unwelcome neigh- 

 bors in a way that keeps them on the alert, but 

 never provokes them to retaliation. The phcebes in- 

 cline this way and that to avoid the blows, but make 

 no sound and raise no wing in defense. They seem 

 to know what a big " bluff " the swallows are putting 

 up, or else how unequal a wing contest with them 

 would be. 



224 



