A HAY-BARN IDYL 



in alighting. It would be interesting to know how 

 long they were on the wing before they began cap- 

 turing their own food. I saw the parent birds feed- 

 ing them in the air a few days after the exodus from 

 the nest. In August they will be perching upon tele- 

 graph-wires and upon the ridgepoles of hay-barns, 

 with the instinct of migration working in their little 

 bodies. 



The exodus of the young phoebes from the nest 

 was much less noticeable. I saw no preliminary 

 stretching or flapping of wings, and no parental 

 solicitude. Flying is not the business of the phcebe, 

 as it is with the swallow, and its life is much more 

 humdrum. The young came out at intervals one 

 afternoon, and they lingered about the barn, going 

 out and in for several days, the family keeping well 

 together. Later I shall see them about the orchards 

 and fences, bobbing their tails and being fed by their 

 parents. 



A mow of last year's hay in the big bay of the barn 

 holds its pretty secret also. Two years ago a junco 

 or snowbird built her nest in its side, and this year 

 she, or another, is back again, a month earlier. It 

 amuses me to see her come in with her beak full of 

 dry grass to build a nest in a mow of dry grass. Her 

 forebears have always built their nests in the sides 

 of weedy or mossgrown banks in secluded fields and 

 woodsides, and have used such material as they 

 could find in these places. She is under the spell of 

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