BIRD PARADISE 8i 



material the mud of the roadside. They seein to 

 be quite firm and with thorough repairing are 

 used year after year. Some of them have pas- 

 sageways like the neck of a bottle, and frequently 

 at each opening may be seen the heads of the 

 parent birds quietly surveying the outside world. 

 The young of the swallow family must be adepts 

 in the use of their wings, for I never have seen 

 them tumbling about half fledged. I fancy they 

 keep close within the home nest until they are 

 quite fully grown, then flight is a sort of second 

 nature to them. I have no way of computing 

 the number of insects a swallow secures as he 

 goes to and fro through the day, but it must be 

 a large number. I hear the little bills snap 

 sharply, and know that each stroke is the full 

 end of a fly's career. Multiplying swallows are 

 carrying large destruction into the crowded 

 ranks of the great fly host. 



Among my parishioners none ranks higher in 

 my regard than the wide-awake flicker. His 

 doing, I am sure, is always up to the full mark 

 of the Scriptural injunction, "With all his 

 might." Six years ago a pair of them located 

 their summer home in one of my lawn maples. 



