NEW GLEANINGS IN OLD FIELDS 



they migrate in large flocks like the other swallows. 

 I only know that their season with us ends about 

 the 20th of August, and that they pass the winter in 

 South America, where I hope they have as happy a 

 time as they do here. If anything preys upon them 

 while they are here I do not know what it is. They 

 could laugh at the swiftest hawk. They share the 

 distrust of all birds toward the cat, though I have 

 never known Puss to catch one. They will swoop 

 down spitefully if she lingers about their haunts, 

 and I have seen her try to strike them with her paw, 

 but have never known her to succeed. 



My swallows have a pretty habit, when the day 

 is chilly and cloudy or stormy, of collecting their 

 brood on the little ledges or shelves above the win- 

 dows on the south gable of the house and feeding 

 them there. The young sit there in a huddled row, 

 apparently looking off in the fields of air where then- 

 parents are coursing for insects, and when they see 

 them returning, they break out in a happy and 

 grateful chatter. The old weather-worn gable is for 

 the moment the scene of a very pleasing and ani- 

 mated incident in swallow life. 



III. INSECTS 



One reason why all truthful and well-written 

 books upon insects interest us more than the sub- 

 ject would seem to warrant is that no creature is 

 small in print, or in a book. Print is the great equal- 

 201 



