are a much larger bird, but their lovely breast and the lower part of his body 



song at morning and evening is heard was a pearly white, the top of his wings 



no more. and body were black, and the top of his 



More than fifty years ago a pair of head and down the back of his neck was 



Tree Swallows built their nest and reared a beautiful metallic blue and green, and 



their young in our house. Just under gave off the splendor of the peacock in 



the window sill of the second story was the bright sunlight. 



a knot-hole, and into that hole went this I discovered at that time that one of 

 pair of Swallows, and between the plas- of his toes was deformed, and I caught 

 ter on the inside and the clapboards on the same bird for three consecutive 

 the outside they had a cosy place for a years, with the same deformed toe. That 

 home, and through that hole they jointly made me more curious about the Swal- 

 carried hundreds of pieces of straw and lows, and when I consulted the books 

 feathers, year after year, for nest-build- and found that they went a long way to 

 ing, and often I "watched the male bird their winter homes, and were seen at 

 while his mate was brooding, hanging that season in great abundance in the 

 by his little feet on the rim of the hole, South, it set me to thinking. By what 

 singing snatches of love songs to cheer process of the convolutions of their lit- 

 tler, while she sat patiently on her nest, tie brains could such perfect work be 

 and with his cunning little black eyes done, and how could it so perfectly 

 sparkling with love as he jauntily turned guide them year after year to the same 

 his head, first one way, then another, little knot-hole, in the same little house 

 like an opera singer for effect. It made of the same little village in the State of 

 a very enticing picture. New York? 



One day after the young ones were Nothing to me is more wonderful, no 



well grown, I raised the window, when achievement of human intelligence is 



the male bird went in to feed them, and any more difficult to account for. 



put a cage with the open door over the It can only be said that it is the spirit 



knot-hole, and when he came out he was of that unknown power moving in the 



my prisoner, and I kept him long enough organic life — the incomprehensible — that 



to see how very beautiful he was. His which man calls God. 



Anson C. Allen. 



THE WIND'S CONQUEROR. 



The wind goes shrieking mid the boughs, 

 It pulls, it tears, it rages wild — 

 It casts the branches to the earth, 

 And drift and drift on drift is piled ; 

 And yet he stays — 



(That little feathered chirper on the storm tossed bough) 

 The gales may blow, 

 Or high or low — 



He never thinks of giving up, nor knows he how. 



— Jac Lowell. 



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