NATURE'S REALM. 
Now they look down upon a great world far 
below them, a world of blossoming orchards 
and rich meadow lands, It is their first sight 
of tree or sun or sky. 
Four gray heads look anxiously down from 
the narrow threshold. Their elders all the 
while are wheeling round the tower, floating 
now and then near by, as if to tempt the timid 
aeronauts to make the first perilous plunge. 
One of them gathers heart and flutters out. 
He gains the footing of one of the gargoyles 
that the barbarous ‘‘ restorers” have spared to 
the gray old pile, while all the neighbors shout 
a chorus of encouragement. Another spreads 
his wings and alights on a battered scrap of 
carving on the wall. 
Now all four have passed the brink, and one 
by one they gain the battlement of the tower, 
fluttering from point to point, until at last they 
muster courage to trust themselves upon the 
yielding air, and follow their parents to the 
fields below. 
It is a strange collection of materials that the 
jackdaw loves to accumulate in its untidy nest. 
Sticks and paper, carpet and cowhair, bits of 
cloth and scraps of string, are all made use of. 
Most birds that are hangers on of men, and 
find a living in the farmyard or the street, are 
ready to avail themselves of the handiwork of 
their suzerain in the construction of their nests. 
A stray end of string or worsted used in this 
way as building material has, ere now, brought 
dire disaster on the unfortunate architects. 
One old bird even contrived to hang itself in a 
loop of worsted. Young sparrows, snared by 
the lining of the nest, have been imprisoned 
until late in the winter, fed all the while by 
faithful relatives, until some kindly hand re- 
leased them from their bondage. 
Although many broods are fledged already, 
and many more will soon have taken wing, 
there are not a few birds that still possess their 
souls in patience, warming their unhatched 
eggs. 
The kestrel, in her crevice in the cliff, has 
heard no faint note of life beneath her shelter- 
ing feathers. 
Still the goldcrest is swinging in her snug 
green hammock among the dark leafage of the 
churchyard yew. A tiny nest it is to hold so 
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much. A family of eight have to find room in 
it, under their mother’s wings. But they area 
tiny race; five of them full-grown would not 
amount altogether to a single ounce, 
Less fettered still are the swifts, whose labors 
have hardly even yet begun. Still on their 
untiring wings they career with joyous screams . 
across the sky. ‘ 
Astir before the day begins to glimmer in the 
east, on the wing through the hot summer 
noon, still flying when the gold of sunset has. 
faded from the sea, all day long they wander in 
the air. 
The nest of the swift shows but little art in, 
its construction, nor is it always, indeed, the 
work of the bird itself. It will, occasionally at 
least, appropriate a house-sparrow’s nest, 
whether occupied or not; and more than once - 
has a brood of young sparrows been seen which 
had apparently been turned out by the swifts 
and left to perish on the ground. 
The sparrow, for his part, is much addicted 
to seizing on the nest of a swallow—more fre- 
quently still on that of a house-martin, even 
when just new from the hands of the builders. 
It has often been said that the aggrieved 
owners have been known to call in the assist- 
ance of sympathizing neighbors, and that the 
assembled troop have then walled up the un- 
fortunate sparrows—to die of starvation in their 
ill-gotten hold. Happily, however, ‘for the 
reputation of the martin, it is very doubtful if 
there is any real authority for the story. 
Swifts seem unusually abundant this year 
(1889), but swallows and martins have come 
back to us in sadly diminished numbers. 
The reason for this difference is not far to. 
seek. The dark plumage of the swift has no. 
charm in the eyes.of the high-born beauties, 
for whose adornment so many thousand lives . 
have been sacrificed this spring. 
The destruction of swallows has, indeed, 
been most lamentable. The report recently 
presented to the Zodlogical Society of France, . 
after describing how the birds are taken and 
for what purpose they are killed, urges that the 
French Government should interfere to protect 
a race whose services to man are beyond all cal- 
culation. So great has been already the hav. c 
made, that there are parts of France where the. 
