Concord, Mass.
1910.
June 19
(No 2)
[June 19, 1910]

White bellied Swallows feeding young.

  White-bellied Swallows are now feeding young almost 
wholly fledged in two boxes at the Farm and two on
the Ritchie place. Both sexes share this labor equally and
keep at it steadily from morning to night one or the other 
coming to the box every two or three minutes. As a rule
they go no further from it than fifty to one hundred yards,
hawking for insects just above the tops of the trees in &
about the garden and orchard. The grace and precision 
with which the browsing bird alights just below the hole with
its wide spread tail pressed against the front of the box & its
feet clinging to the lower rise of the hole are admirable
to watch. The young now show their heads and twitter when
they hear the old one approaching. She does not enter the hole
except every now and then to remove a snow white excrement
sack which she carries fifty or sixty yards before dropping it.
Altogether I know no more attractive birds than nesting Tree Swallows with young.