Part 11

Song--though short and always the same is in tone wonderfully expressive of happiness, love, anger, or fear, as the case may be.

Black head--wings and tail brown--touches of white on throat--entire breast a rusty red.--Female duller and paler in colouring, growing almost as bright as the male in the autumn.

Food--principally insects and worms--does not disdain fruit, berries, cherries, etc., but prefers insect food--a ravenous eater.

Nest--outer layer composed of sticks, coarse grasses, etc., seemingly rather carelessly arranged--on this the rather large round nest is woven with grasses--plastered with mud--lined with softer grasses.

Eggs--greenish blue--four in number--young have black spots on breast--generally two broods reared in a season--sometimes three.

THE SWALLOW

UNDER THE EAVES

It was the tenth day of April. Phyllis knew the date because it chanced to be her birthday. She was just eight years old.

The sun shone very warm and bright, and the buds were growing big and red on the horse-chestnut-trees.

"I shall go down to the brook to look for pussy-willows this afternoon," said the little girl.

Phyllis was sitting in the window of the barn loft with the sun shining full upon her. All was very quiet and the little girl was half asleep.

Suddenly, with a flash of blue wings and a funny little twitter, a bird darted right across her face. Phyllis sat up straight, and, leaning out of the window, looked up at the eaves.

There she saw the merry twitterer, with several of his companions, who seemed very busy and very talkative.

They darted here and there, they skimmed through the air so swiftly that Phyllis could only catch a gleam of blue. They wheeled and circled and darted. All the time they twittered, twittered, twittered.

"What are they up to?" said Phyllis, leaning farther out and looking more closely.

For an instant one of the birds clung to the eaves and seemed to be pecking away at a bit of mud which was stuck to the eaves.

Phyllis noticed the deeply forked tail of the bird. Its back and wings and tail were steel blue. Its throat and chest were bright chestnut, becoming paler near the back of the body.

"Oh, I know you," laughed Phyllis. "I have no fear of frightening you, for you are a swallow.

"How does it happen that you are so fearless? You are scarcely more afraid of us than our chickens. Why do you build so near our homes? You are even more tame than the robin!"

The swallow twittered in a way which made Phyllis feel that he was laughing at her. He darted so near that had she been quick enough she might have caught him.

"We are not afraid of you!" laughed the swallow, darting close again and then whirling away.

"What a funny bird!" said Phyllis.

In a moment the bird was back with a bit of mud in his mouth. He plastered it up against the rest of the mud under the eaves. Then he flew again near Phyllis.

"I suppose there was a time," said the bird, "when all swallows built their nests on the sides and ledges of caves or cliffs. But that was hundreds of years ago, before men came and made barns with such comfortable places for building.

"To be sure there are swallows to this day who prefer the bank of a brook or the side of a cave for their nesting-place. But we barn swallows like the eaves best."

"You, too, are an early bird," said Phyllis. "Where did you spend the winter?"

There was a great twittering among the returning swallows just then and Phyllis was obliged to wait for a reply. Back came the bird after a moment.

"We went south last October," he said. "Late in September we gathered in great flocks in the marshes.