OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS 



about twittering, excited by my presence. But I sat 

 still, and presently the male ventured. I snapped him 

 as he approached the stub, and he flew back without 

 entering. But in a moment he alighted at the entrance 

 with a fly, and, not heeding the sound of the shutter, 

 entered, fed the young, and emerged carrying a sac of 

 excrement. By this time I had changed the plate and 

 caught him as he left. Then the female came, and 

 they were constantly going and coming, giving me all 

 the snapshots I wanted. Later, when the five young 

 were about ready to leave, I took out two of them and 

 posed them, and then put them carefully back into the 

 hole. 



One day I came out from the woods on the adjoining 

 hill, hundreds of feet above this morass, overlooking 

 the whole tract. It was a lovely panorama of high 

 rolling hills, with two lakes nestling in the valley, and, 

 aided by my strong field glass, I actually could see the 

 old woodpecker hole in the swallow stub, and see the 

 swallows enter and leave the cavity as they fed their 

 young. 



Still another familiar species is the Bank Swallow, 

 the small brownish fellow that digs out burrows in 

 gravel banks near ponds or streams. They are quite 

 common, and a number of banks or cuts in my neigh- 

 borhood each boast of a little colony of a dozen or more 

 pairs. The birds arrive toward the end of April, and 

 presently go to work digging their burrows, and then 

 make trips to poultry yards to pick up feathers with 



184 



