36 BIRDS OF LA PLATA 



curiously peering under the eaves, and incessantly 

 uttering their gurgling happy notes. 



For a period of a month to six weeks before build- 

 ing begins they seem to be holding an incessant 

 dispute, reminding one in their scolding tones of a 

 colony of contentious English House-Sparrows, only 

 the Swallow has a softer, more varied voice, and 

 frequently, even when hotly quarrelling, he pauses 

 to warble out his pretty little song, with its sound 

 like running water. However many eligible chinks 

 and holes there may be, the contention is always 

 just as great amongst them, and is doubtless referable 

 to opposing claims to the best places. The excited 

 twittering, the incessant striving of two birds to 

 alight on the same square inch of wall, the perpetual 

 chases they lead each other round and round the 

 house, always ending exactly where they began, tell 

 of clashing interests and of great unreasonableness 

 on the part of some amongst them, By-and-by the 

 quarrel assumes a more serious aspect ; friends and 

 neighbours have apparently intervened in vain ; all 

 the arguments of which Swallows are capable have 

 been exhausted, and, a compromise of claims being 

 more impossible than ever, fighting begins. Most 

 vindictively do the little things clutch each other and 

 fall to the earth twenty times an hour, where they 

 often remain struggling for a long time, heedless of 

 the screams of alarm their fellows set up above them ; 

 for often, while they thus lie on the ground punishing 

 each other, they fall an easy prey to some wily pussy 

 who has made herself acquainted with their habits. 



