X 



THE DANGERS BY THE WAY : A CHAPTER OF 

 ACCIDENTS 



HOVEL" is the name by which the farmers 

 near my home called a certain kind of 

 barn in which hay was stored. The entrance to 

 the loft was through an opening large enough to 

 admit a pitchfork full of hay. There was no 

 way of closing this opening except by hay, which, 

 after a good crop, sometimes rilled it. But ere 

 spring came most of the hay had been fed to the 

 cows which slept beneath the hovel, and then the 

 doorless doorway was hospitably open to the 

 Barn Swallow. 



Few hovels were without them; joyously, 

 freely they darted in and out. One which I 

 used often to visit had no less than twenty-two 

 Swallows' nests built bracket-like on the face of 

 the rafters or supported by various projections. 



At the proper time practically every nest 



