170 THE STRUGGLE. 
two broods—one of five, and one of four— 
since May, and were actually now engaged in 
rearing a third of four. 
Thirty-eight days ago the little mother had 
started in to lay every day the four eggs of 
the last clutch. Twenty-four days ago, about, 
the eggs had hatched out. And now, to-day, 
mother and father, assisted by some of the 
young of the second brood, certainly, if not by 
one or more of the first, were working against 
time to feed the new brood, and rear them as 
quickly as possible, that they might be ready 
for the great journey to the tropics that all of 
them must make—before winter came—must, 
you understand, or die. 
Gnats and midges, upon which the martins 
feed, were not so plentiful as they had been. 
Indeed, the father was at his wits’-end to find 
them. To leeward of the house, out of the 
bitter north-easter, up and down by the wall 
where a little sun struck, he hawked, taking 
the flies that came there to bask. In quiet 
corners under the old apple-trees, or above the 
cattle-pond, where the sun filtered through 
the reddening foliage in bars, a few gnats 
danced in columns, and—were caught in 
dozens in his little gaping beak, as he darted 
and flickered and twisted and shot. But even 
at the hottest hour of the day his returns to 
