145
Lake Umbagog.
Lakeside
1897.
June 13
   Cloudy all day with heavy rain coming not continuously
but in showers with brief intervals between.
  The weather was so very bad that we decided
to devote the day to packing and to take tomorrow 
for my last rip up the lake. Accordingly I
spent most of the forenoon in the cabin of the 
house boat and practically the whole afternoon
at the hotel.
  Mr. Chandler showed us a Barn Swallow sitting on
a nest placed under the roof of the piazza nearly
on the front steps and within two or three yards
of the front door of the house. The nest  -  which rests
on a square timber about 8 ft. above the floor  -  was
occupied two years ago by a Robin which reared a 
brood in it. Last year it was unoccupied. No
one knows just when or by what bird it was
built originally but it looks most like a Robin's
nest and it has certainly been in its present position 
for three or four years. Of course the Swallows have
added a feather lining.
[margin]Nest of
Barn
Swallow
under roof
of piazza[/margin]
  C. tells me that the two swallows take turns at
incubating & change places every 15 or 20 minutes (I
saw this for myself two days later). They pay no
attention to the people walking or talking beneath them
and yesterday one of the young men standing nearly under the nest fired upwards
of fifty shots from a rifle, [delete]standing beneath or, within two yards of the nest[/delete] 
without disturbing the sitting bird.