218 A FARMER'S YEAR 



June 6. Yesterday was warm and beautiful, a very oasis in 

 the desert of this year's cold and gloom. This morning also was 

 warm, but the afternoon weather has been diversified with thunder 

 and heavy showers of rain and hail, that do much injury to the 

 young beet by splitting up and spoiling them. 



I have been watching the swallows laying the foundations of 

 their nest in the porch of the house. I did not think that they 

 would build here this year, as the nests had been knocked down 

 by workmen, and I imagined that the smell of recent paint would 

 not be to their taste. They have come back, however, and com- 

 menced the work by plastering two little heaps of mud at a dis- 

 tance of about two inches, which are gradually brought together 

 into an arch designed to bear the weight of the nest. It makes 

 one wonder where they learned architecture. 



These swallows are very curious birds. For so long as I 

 have known this house four or five pairs of them have built 

 about it, and always in the same places. Once, when the house 

 was let, the tenant would not suffer them in the porch because of 

 the dirt they made ; but so soon as he was gone they returned, al- 

 though it is difficult to imagine a more inconvenient spot, as they 

 are constantly disturbed by those passing out and in. The 

 puzzling thing is that their number never seems to vary, which 

 inclines me to think that in order to live in comfort they require 

 a certain area of ground over which to hawk. What I should like 

 to know, however, is whether they are always the same swallows 

 that return spring after spring. This, I think, can scarcely be the 

 case, since, even if they live a great deal longer than we suppose, 

 they must die sometime a natural death or meet with accidents. 

 Yet year after year they arrive, two by two, in the accustomed 

 spots, never more and never less of them, and that these are 

 very frequently the same birds I am convinced by observation, 

 since, in the early spring, I have often watched the pair in the porch. 

 This porch, until the month of May, is protected by glass doors, 

 which are removed for the summer. When the swallows come 

 one may see them dipping and twittering outside these doors, 



