orlng with the delivery of his song. At our 
approach he slipped Into the lower recesses 
of the tangled grass, from which we could 
still hear his song, like the subdued mutler- 
<ing of a peevish child. 
My companion was much interested in 
the wren, and in fact showed symptoms of 
Incipient bird fever. Ho was charmed by 
the mway dance which countless swallows 
all day executed over the grassy meadows. 
His inquiries, though extremely intelligent 
and showing excellent powers of observa¬ 
tion, betrayed unfamiliarity with the tech¬ 
nical terms of ornithology. He watched a 
barn swallow take either a sip of .water or 
an insect from the surface and remarked 
on the way the bird’s “lower lip” hung 
down, like a whippoorwill’s. If the swal¬ 
lows had been procured as laboratory ma¬ 
terial they could not have given a better 
exhibition for a student. There were four 
species constantly about us, and they 
turned, and passed and repassed, showing 
back and rump, and forehead and throat 
in every position and light. Many of them, 
were, I suppose, late migrants. I can 
hardly believe that the Ipswich valley sup¬ 
ports such numbers as we saw. The great 
attraction for the swallows seemed to be a 
flight of the smallest midges imaginable, 
which hovered in myriads close over the 
surface of the water. I should think that 
it would be discouraging to take in food 
in such small quantities; a swallow must 
have to collect a dozen or more of these 
tiny insects before he can tell that he is 
eating anything. 
We passed a sand bank at the edge of 
one swallow-covered meadow, the steep 
sides of which seemed to interest the sand 
swallows, ana was perhaps to be their 
breeding place. Half a dozen of them left 
the dance from time to time, and flew to 
that part of the bank directly under the 
turf, where it presented a perpendicular, 
damp face. Here one hole had already 
been dug to the depth of about four inches. 
One of the swallows repeatedly lighted at 
the edge of this hole, and clung there with 
its feet, supporting itself by pressing its 
outspread tail against the bank. Another 
swallow always alighted beside it, also 
grasping the edge of the hole and spread¬ 
ing its tail below. There the two clung, 
looking into the hole, or from side to 
side, lifting their long, pointed wings high 
over their heads, or finally flying off over 
the meadow. The others fluttered about 
the fortunate pair, lik# brown bees, or 
clung to the steep face of the bank, or 
rested on the loose sand below. Once a 
cliff swallow clung for a moment with 
them. Was it a mere social impulse, or 
the stirring of some instinct inherited from 
j his cliff-dwelling forefathers on the steep 
bluffs of the Missouri? 
Besides the migrant swallows, if they 
I were migrants, one solitary sandpiper 
and a pair of least sandpipers, we saw 
only four species of migrants—one 
blackpoll, one Wilson's blackcap, one 
Canada warbler and four water thrushes. 
There has been a very poor blackpoll 
migration this spring, ,or else they have 
gone by In silence; there have been none 
of those warm days when the sharp, high 
notes of blackpolis rise and fall in every 
tree. 
i lie spring migration was just coming 
to a clofee, but it covers so long a period, 
over two months, that the early arrivals 
are well along toward the fulfilment of 
their desires; some indeed have already 
launched a young brood Into the world. 
As we came quietly around a turn in the 
river nine young black ducks, who were 
swimming in the middle of the stream, 
started off in alarm, almost running on 
the surface of the water, and crying as 
if all the duck hawks in New England 
were after them. Suddenly there was a 
splash, and one disappeared, another 
splash and another vanished, until only 
three were left. These hurried into a 
sheltering clump of button bushes, which 
bordered the stream. I did not know be¬ 
fore 'that little black ducks could or 
would dive, but these certainly did, com¬ 
ing up no doubt close to the bank, and 
hiding there till all was silent, and a 
low quack from their mother called them 
out again. We saw nothing of either 
parent. 
Among the land birds, too, the problems 
of house hunting and housekeeping and 
the feeding of young were being solvecl 
in every orchard and thicket. We passed 
a farmyard where a white-bellied swal- 
low. had captured a long white downy 
hen’s feather, and was struggling with It 
toward an apple tree, where it was to 
be the lining for some deserted wood¬ 
pecker’s hole. The wind blew the feather 
about her head, so that she seemed cov¬ 
ered with a boa, or a travelling veil. 
A farmer was ploughing near by, among 
some apple trees, from the branches of 
which a pair of bluebirds scanned the up¬ 
turned soil. When they found a grub 
they dropped upon it with the character¬ 
istic flutter of their wing-tips, and then 
flew far off across the meadows to a 
distant nest, returning after a time to 
follow the plough. 
While we were watching the bluebirds 
a female Grosbeak flew over us toward 
a thicket at the edge of the river. There, 
was something in the directness of her 
flight that said, as plainly as if she car¬ 
ried a market basket, that she was either 
going directly to her nest or after build¬ 
ing material. She lit first in a small 
tree, and then after a moment dropped 
to the ground. A little later she again 
passed over our heads with a bill full of 
small twigs or rootlets, and flew to an¬ 
other thicket two or three hundred yards 
away.. Why did she get her building ma¬ 
terial so far away from her nest? Was 
It from an instinct of caution, or had she 
discovered some especially suitable ma¬ 
teria] in the spot which she was visiting? 
For some time before we approached 
North Reading we had been hearing the ' 
dull boom of a distant drum, and occa- : 
sional shrill bursts of music, and as we 
passed under the bridge at North Read¬ 
ing itself we had before us the whole i 
line of a Memorial Day procession. 
There was a barge for the veterans, vet¬ 
erans now in every sense, and another 
barge full of the white dresses and gay 
ribbons of a schoolgirl choir. 
Behind these walked a varied company, 
the whole population apparently of all 
the surrounding country. Farmers and 
