Idle Days in Patagonia. 



The trees of the Mission House proved very 

 attractive to these birds ; the tall Lombardy poplars 

 were specially favoured, which seems strange, for in 

 a high wind (and it was very windy just then) the 



Swallows congregating. 



slim unresting tree forms as bad a perching- 

 place as a bird could well settle on. Neverthe- 

 less, to the poplars they would come when the wind 

 was most violent ; first hovering or wheeling about in 

 an immense flock, then, as occasion offered, dropping 

 down, a few at a time, to cling, like roosting 



