The Wit of the Wild 



r 



them down, and that is probably the main rea- 

 son why this bird so persistently seeks the shel- 

 ter of our porches. The cliff swallows, too, 

 suffer in that way in wild regions, where they 

 plaster their earthen bulb-like homes in dense 

 colonies on the face of a cliff or clay bank, 

 whence I have seen them slough off by the score 

 when dampened ; but they, too, " know enough 

 to come in when it rains " and wherever civiliza- 

 tion has gone they have abandoned their preca- 

 rious native method for nesting sites beneath 

 the eaves of barns and have even modified their 

 architecture in adaptation to the new and safer 

 positions. 



Gales sometimes upset nests and hurl them 

 out of the trees, though this is not so frequent 

 an accident as one might expect. Sometimes, 

 however, birds place their nests most insecurely. 

 A robin last summer built a nest near me in a 

 clump of maples, and was so foolish as to rest 

 it upon two near-by branches, one of which be- 

 longed to one tree and one to another. Of 

 course the first high wind, moving the trees at 

 variance, wrenched the nest apart. I saw a 



