102 Birds Every Child Should Know 
age, which is plain brownish gray above, white 
underneath, with a grayish band across the 
breast. Only their cousin, the rough-winged 
swallow, whose breast is brownish gray, is so 
plainly dressed. 
The giggling twitter of the bank swallows as 
they wheel and dart through the air above you, 
proves that they are never too busy hunting 
for a dinner to speak a cheerful word to their 
friends. Year after year a colony will return to 
a favourite bank, whose face has been honey- 
combed with such care. Think of the labour 
and patience required for so small a bird to dig 
a tunnel two feet deep, more or less! Some 
nests have been placed as far as four feet from 
the entrance. You are not surprised at the big 
kingfisher, who also tunnels a hole in a bank for 
his family, because his long, strong bill makes 
digging comparatively easy ; but for the small- 
billed, weak-footed swallow, the work must be 
difficult indeed. What a pity they cannot hire 
moles to make the tunnels with their strong, 
flat, spade-like feet. No wonder the birds be- 
come attached to the tunnels that have cost so 
much labour. When there are no longer any 
baby swallows on the heaps of twigs, grass and 
feathers at the end of them, the birds use them 
as resting places by day as well as by night until 
it is time to gather in vast flocks and speed away 
to the tropics. 
