304 SWALLOWS AND MARTINS 



minutes, several insects being of course brought each time. These 

 are put into the throats of the young in bundles, as already 

 described. One such packet was dropped by a house-martin at the 

 very moment of delivery to its offspring, and it fell by strange fortune 

 onto the hat of an ornithologist, who hastened to place it under a 

 magnifying glass. This revealed a cluster of insects, some with life 

 enough left to struggle. One did actually manage to disengage itself 

 from the rest, and crawled away, having escaped " literally from the 

 very jaws of death." J In similar packets carried to its young by a 

 species of like habits, though of a different Order, the alpine-swift 

 (Apus melba), a Swiss naturalist found 150 to over 200 insects. He 

 estimated that the total number caught by one of these birds in a day 

 of ten hours would amount to about 2000, a figure that makes it 

 profitable to reflect on what we might have to suffer if swallows, 

 martins, swifts, and other fly-eating species were not with us in 

 sufficient numbers. 2 



The young of both species remain from three weeks to a month 

 in the nest, 3 at the end of which period comes one of the most exciting 

 experiences of their lives the first flight. To quit the solid security 

 of the home they know, and drop at once and irretrievably into an 

 invisible something of which they know nothing, may well excite fears 

 and hesitations in their breasts. So they pause, and flap uncertain 

 wings, almost make a start, almost lose their balance, and with it their 

 courage, so much so that they retire into the nest to think, before 

 they emerge again to look, and to watch their parents, now hovering 

 on fast-beating wings close there in front of them, now gliding away 

 in smooth, effortless flight, to return once more, thus showing them 

 how easy it is, and how pleasant. So at last, enticed, urged, encour- 



1 Warde Fowler, A Year with the Birds, 1886, p. 48. 



2 Studer and Fatio, Katalog der Schweizerischen Vogel, Lieferung ii. p. 145. Article by 

 Dr. Leo Zehnter. 



3 The following dates of hatching and fledging of house-martins are given by H. Fischer 

 Sigwart in the Mitteilungen der Aargauiachen Naturforschenden Gesellschaft, Heft x. : (1) 28 

 June to 28 July ; (2) 7 June to 7 July ; (3) 20 June to 24 July. For the swallow H. Schacht, in the 

 Zoologischea Garten, 1873, 20-29, records the period for one first brood as lasting from June 12 to 

 July 5, of the second brood as from August 6 to August 17. 



