loo Birds Every Child Should Know 
himself with those marvellously quick, erratic 
turns, which make his course through the air 
resemble forked lightning. But with what 
exquisite grace he can also glide and skim across 
the water, fields and meadows without an 
apparent movement of the wing! His flight 
seems the very poetry of motion. The ease 
of it accounts for the very wide distribution 
of barn swallows from southern Brazil in win- 
ter to Greenland and Alaska in summer. What 
a journey to take twice a year! 
THE EAVE OR CLIFF SWALLOW 
More than any other bird family, the swal- 
lows are becoming increasingly dependent for 
shelter upon man, at least when they are nest- 
ing; and as this is the season when they are 
most valuable to him because of the enormous 
numbers of insects they prevent from multi- 
plying, let us hope that familiarity with us 
will never breed contempt and cause them to 
return to their old, uncivilised building sites. 
In the sparsely settled West, the cliff swallow 
still fastens its queer, gourd-shaped, mud nest 
against projeeting rocks, but in the East it is 
so quick to take advantage of the eaves of the 
barns and other out-buildings, that its old name 
does not apply, and we know it here only as an 
eave swallow. 
