The Swallow. 



163 



red spots. There are two broods, or there would be if the 

 sparrows did not intervene. The young of the first brood 

 generally fly towards the end of June, and the second at the 

 end of August. 



About the second week in September the birds congregate 

 and betake themselves at night to trees to prepare for their 

 long flight to warmer regions — Africa, India, and other 

 countries — where they pass the winter. 



The continued decrease in the numbers of Swallows and 

 Martins is a serious loss to agriculture. It seems that 

 there are two reasons for this diminution, one being the 

 slaughter of the birds in the South of Europe, and the other 

 the great increase of the House Sparrow, Passer doniesticusy 

 which drives away the Swallows from their nesting places, 

 and prevents them from freely breeding. With regard to 

 the first of these reasons there is no doubt that there is a great 

 slaughter of Swallows in the countries through which these 

 birds pass in their migratory passages to and from Great 

 Britain and other of their summer resorts. Dr. Oustalet, the 

 French delegate to the Ornithological Congress at Vienna 

 in 1884, drew attention, in his report, to the deplorable 

 slaughter at that time of Swallows in the South of France. 

 In an interesting report, presented to the Societe Zoologique 

 de France in 1888, it is stated that thousands of dead 

 Swallows were consigned to Paris in the spring of 1887 

 and 1888 for the fashions, pour les modes; these had been 

 captured in the Department of the Bouches-du-Rhone by 

 means of hooks, nets, and electric batteries which, it is said, 

 destroy many thousands of victims in a day. The report 

 concluded by praying the Minister of Agriculture and the 

 Minister of the Interior to urge the Prefects of Depart- 

 ments to forbid the slaughter of Swallows. The wanton 

 destruction of these birds was also the subject of complaint 

 at a conference held at Auxerre in 1892 to consider steps to 

 be taken for the preservation of insectivorous birds. It was 

 again referred to in a report upon the Protection of Small 

 'Birds, presented by M. A. Duval to a general meeting of the 

 Societe des Agriculteurs de France in 1894. In Italy, also, 



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