USICFII. I’.IRDS 
3 
disintegrated condition that anything like an accurate count was 
impossible. By turning the lens of a camera toward the sky, the 
accompanying photograph of the swallows was obtained. With 
hundreds of them on the wing, there were, of course, many out of 
focus. The indifferent t)icture, however, may illustrate the fact 
that the air was literally full of swallows. 
Fig. 5. Tree swallows in enormous numl)ers catching gnats. 
Fake Minnetonka, September, 11)14. 
Jvefereiice has been made to the rajitorial birds, our hawks and 
owls. From time immemorial, practically, the farmer’s boy has 
felt jiistihed in shooting* every hawk and every owl met with, under 
the im])ression that he w^as doing agriculture a good turn thereliy. 
Whenever he could bring down a crow or shoot into a bunch of 
blackbirds, he felt an honest conviction that his action would be 
approved at home ; hence he returns triumphant, proudly displaying 
his dead crow, or hawk, or owl as he walks the village street, while 
perchance the oi' quail or chicken shot out of season is 
snugly tucked away in the pocket of his hunting coat. 
