14 THE SWALLOW 



flowers, alive with the busy little pilgrims, 

 gladdened with their meri-y chatter and their 

 fleeting song. 



The nests which these swallows build are 

 curious works of art. The outside they 

 make of mud, which they fetch from some 

 pond or river bank, and with the mud they 

 mix hairs and bits of straw to hold it to- 

 gether. The inside they line with soft leaves 

 and feathers. There are two settings of eggs 

 each year, the first of five or six eggs, the 

 second of three. The eggs are white, 

 speckled with dull red spots. Their nests 

 they place, not apart by themselves on some 

 lonely tree top like many other birds, but 

 side by side with the nests of their com- 

 panions in a little colony under the eaves 

 of our barns, or along the beams just under 

 the roof. In certain lands of southern Eu- 

 rope this sociable little bird is allowed to 

 build her nest in the windows of the houses, 

 and in the crevices of the tiles of the roof. 

 In the Orient she sometimes even puts it in- 



