122 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. # 
the males of several species often arrive a few days 
earlier than the females. They come to see if the 
weather and other conditions are favorable for the sea- 
son’s housekeeping. What were the understandings 
between these couples when the gallants started on their 
long journeys into the seemingly great unknown? 
Where and how were they to meet? Was he to return, 
or was she to follow after a certain time? We only 
know that unless accident befall one or the other, the 
pleasant spring days find them together again near their 
last year’s home. That many of the birds do return 
year after year to their old haunts is a fact too well 
known by those who have observed their habits to 
require any extended proof. I have known the same 
pair of robins to make their nest on a beam under a shed 
during eight or nine consecutive years: how much 
longer they might have occupied the place isnot known, 
as they returned again to find the shed in ruins, and 
were obliged to seek other quarters. This pair I could 
easily identify, as the female bird was partly an albino, 
having considerable white on the back and in wings and 
tail. Another robin, that by some mishap had lost a 
foot, made its appearance in the same yard in the city 
for two or three years. In many sections perhaps only 
one barn in half a township will be used by the eave 
swallows (Petrochelidon lunifrons), but the location 
once selected, the colony will continue to return to it, 
sometimes for half a century, or until the building 
tumbles down with age or undergoes extensive repairs : 
even then stray birds, singly or in pairs, will often be 
