The Red-breasted Flycatcher 



chin and throat reddish orange. The females and young 

 lack the ash grey on the head, and the reddish orange of the 

 chin and breast is very much paler. Young males do not 

 acquire the red breast for two or three years. The four 

 outer pairs of tail feathers have conspicuous white bases. 

 Length 5"1 in.; wing 2 - 8 in. 



THE SWALLOW 



Hirundo rustica, Linnaeus 



Perhaps one of the greatest mysteries surrounding bird 

 life, and awaking, even in the most unthinking, some sense 

 of wonder, is the way in which some of the smallest and 

 most delicate of birds cross enormous stretches of land and 

 water twice a year. This mystery of migration has 

 been especially typified in many countries and from olden 

 times in the Swallow. Essentially a bird of the air, choos- 

 ing the houses of man for nesting-places, and extremely 

 abundant throughout our islands, he cannot fail to force him- 

 self on our attention and to become so associated in our 

 minds with summer days that his first appearance in spring 

 is eagerly looked for. As soon as the March winds have died 

 down the first few stragglers make their appearance, and the 

 early October gales are well over before the last has left. 



During the whole of April they continue to arrive and 

 disperse through the country, and by the beginning of May 

 we shall find them revisiting the same chimney or eave 

 where their brood was hatched in the previous year. They 

 have but a feeble love-song, merely a rapid twittering, which 



109 



