Barn Swallow. You will know it by its glistening steel-blue and chestnut feathers and forked tail. Builds mud nests in barns and outbuildings. Comes in middle April; leaves in September and early October. Nests all through North America up to Arctic regions. Winters in tropics as far south as Brazil.
Tree Swallow. Glistening cloak—pure white breast. Nests in hollow trees or, lacking these, in bird-boxes. Comes in April; leaves in October. Nests in places up to Alaska and Labrador and winters in our southern states south to the tropics.
Bank Swallow. Dull brown cloak with band across chest. Nests in deep horizontal holes in banks. Comes in April; leaves in September and October. Nests like White Breast up to Alaska and Labrador. Winters in the tropics. The smallest Swallow.
Cliff or Eaves Swallow. Pure white band on forehead. Otherwise brightly coloured with steel-blue, chestnut, gray, rusty, and white. Where there are no rocky cliffs for its nesting colonies, they build under the eaves of barns, etc. Nests in North America to Arctic regions. Winters in the tropics.
“Here you have a short description of four Swallows we have seen this afternoon,” said Gray Lady, as Tommy came to the end of the board and only finished by squeezing up the letters. “There is another Swallow, the big cousin of these, called the Purple Martin, with shiny bluish black cloak and light underparts. This beautiful Martin has a soft, musical voice, and is very sociable and affectionate, and even in spring, when the birds have mated, they still like to live in colonies and are very good neighbours among themselves. They were once plentiful and nested in tree holes or houses made purposely for them, but, since the English Sparrow has come, it has pushed its way into their homes and turned them out, so now they are rare, and perhaps you children may never have seen one.
“There was always a high post with a Martin box holding a couple of dozen families up at ‘the General’s’ as far back as I first remember, but during our absence no one watched to keep the Sparrows out, the Martins left, and the house went to decay. Jacob has made a new house, and we will not set it up until next Saturday, so that you can see how it is divided—a room for each family and too high from the ground for cats to reach. We shall keep the house covered with a cloth all winter, so that the Sparrows cannot move in before the Martins return, and in this way we may coax them to come back again and live with us. Then, who knows, perhaps some one of the Kind Hearts’ Club may have patience and take the trouble to build a house and then Purple Martins may become plentiful in Fair Meadow township.
“You heard what Farmer Hill asked a few minutes ago,—‘What’s Swallers good fer, anyhow?’ I want you all to be able to answer this question whenever you hear it asked.
“In the first place Swallows do no manner of harm; they neither eat fruits nor useful berries, nor do they disturb the nests and eggs of other birds. They are beautiful objects in the air, and their laughing twitter when on the wing is a sound that we should miss as much as many real bird songs.
“ ‘These are pleasant qualities,’ some may say, ‘but not exactly useful.’ Listen! As these Swallows are Fleetwings and always birds of the air, so they are sky sweepers, living upon flying insects that few other birds may take, and the large amount of these that they consume is almost beyond belief; so watch when they come back next spring on their return as they fly over the cattle in the pasture, or over the pond surface teeming with insect life. If they do nothing else, they earn their living one and all by mosquito-killing, and the Wise Men of to-day know that the sting of one sort of mosquito is not merely an annoyance, but that it pushes the germ of malaria and other bad diseases straight into the blood.
