SWALLOW LIFE 



RATHER late in the springtime comes to us the most 

 graceful of all birds, the swallow, whose flight is 

 the poetry of motion and whose twitterings are a 

 delightful intoxicant, the mere memory of which calls forth 

 visions of roseate sunset skies and all the delights of summer 

 evenings. Vernal promises may lure other birds to our 

 groves, but not the swallow. The warmth that is enduring, 

 and green leaves and spring blossoms which provide the 

 insect fare upon which she subsists, must be really here 

 before she wiU come to abide with us. 



Of this charming family the earliest to appear are the 

 white-breasted or tree swallows, which, with the advance of 

 civilization, are rapidly losing the habit on which the latter 

 name is based. Originally they built their nests only in hol- 

 low trees, but, like their cousins, the purple martins, they are 

 gradually learning to prefer the homes provided for them 

 by man, and their rent is paid in the service of ridding the 

 air of insect pests. 



Tree swallows with their pure-white breasts and mantles 

 of steel-blue washed with green, are familiar figures darting 

 and whirling above our marshes, dipping into and skimming 

 the surface of their waters, collecting the insects which swarm 

 there. As flocks of them whirl and eddy about in ever- 



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