BIRD LEGEND AND LIFE 



about the home box, and tree swallows on some convenient 

 bush. 



Wherever we see them — floating in mid-air over grazing 

 or homing herds, or wheeling about through the overhanging 

 mists of mosquitoes above stagnant pools, or with momen- 

 tary touches of breast or wing-tips breaking the glassy sur- 

 face of ponds into myriads of infinitesimal waves — ^they chal- 

 lenge our admiration. The grace of the swaUow shows itself 

 even in the mixing of her clay; as she turns and sways and 

 stirs, her slender wings are held daintily above all pollution. 

 Even though at times she must needs come down to earth, 

 she is never of the earth. 



In the early morning we see hvmdreds of these beautiful 

 birds sitting about and pluming themselves on telephone or 

 telegraph wires, which would seem bare as leafless boughs 

 without them. Here they have spent the night with heads 

 tucked under deafening wings, that shut out the requiems 

 chanted by the resonant voices of mosquitoes and other in- 

 sects for the hosts of their slain kindred whose brief lives 

 have ended on the day just past. And in the evening gloam 

 they course about in the air as high as eye can see — apparent- 

 ly for the mere pleasure and exhilaration of being in the air 

 — and of it — ^then swinging low and dipping down to the 

 very surface of streams and ponds in pursuit of insects, aerial 

 and aquatic — ^then agaiu taking longer flights, apparently 

 pursuing only each other. 



In autimin, when the blended greens of grove and field 

 have changed to crimson and gold and brown, and the hum 

 of insect wings is growing more and more faint, we notice 

 the swallows coursing and speeding about over farmyards 

 and meadows in larger groups, their numbers augmented by 

 the broods of summer; and when we see them staying more 



64 



