I had a great affection for the skimming swallows about my farm, and often watched them as they caught flies or went to the low ground for mud for their interesting nests. I was very sorry to find that many of these graceful swallows suffered as much from parasites as other wild birds I had known.
One case, on a farm near me, was quite painful for the sufferers. A window in a carriage-house loft had been left open, and a pair of old swallows, finding the rafters a secluded place, built a fine mud nest against them. When the young ones were hatched they were visited every day by the farmer’s wife, who grieved to find them attacked by fat worms that mostly crawled into their ears. These worms were half an inch long, had no hair, but possessed rudimentary feet like a caterpillar’s, that were only visible under a microscope. One worm penetrated a young bird’s nostril so far that only a tiny piece of his body was visible. Enough remained in sight to seize upon, but his forced exit from the nostril was followed by a gush of blood. The sore place soon got well, and the other young swallows also recovered after their ears were cleaned out.
The kind-hearted mistress of the farm destroyed this mud nest, made a new one of excelsior and wool, put the little swallows in it, and the parents, far from being frightened by this radical change in their environment, went on feeding their young ones, conducted them out into the world beyond the carriage house, and came back the next year to nest in the same place.
Two stories about the swallows interested me greatly. The first one was to the effect that the robin was the bird who undertook to teach the first swallow created how to build a nest. I could imagine the fussy, nervous robin entering upon the task with great haste, and it is said that she very quickly got out of patience. Every time she opened her beak to tell the swallow how to choose her mud and sticks, and how to shape the nest, the intelligent bird would say, “I know that; I know that.” At last, and unfortunately when the nest was only half finished, the robin became exasperated and flew away, and from that day to this every swallow has to be content with a partial home that often falls to pieces.
The second story was a Swedish one, and relates that when the crucified Christ hung on the cross, a swallow kept flying back and forth crying, “Svala! svala!”—comfort, comfort!
I do not believe in the increase of sparrows, and yet I bring up a certain number of them every year. How can I refuse the children who come to me with the tiny birds and say, “This is our sparrow, please feed him. We will call in a few days to see how he is.”
“Children,” I often say falteringly, “if this is a sick sparrow, you won’t blame me if I chloroform him?”
“Oh, no,” they always cheerfully reply, but unfortunately the sparrow is rarely a sick sparrow. He is usually in the best of health, and he opens his yellow-rimmed beak and stares trustingly at me, and after I give him one meal my fate is sealed. I am nurse-in-chief for many days, though a young sparrow, of all my birds, learns soonest to feed himself. Life is sacred in the eyes of children, and the way to get rid of sparrows is not by inciting boys and girls to destroy them.
The whole department of bird and animal life should be under supervision. We have too many cats and dogs, too many sparrows and pigeons in our cities. The health of the citizens is the first consideration. Each city should maintain bird-houses, and bird reservations. If I can raise shy birds on a city veranda, why could not more wild birds be raised in bird-houses in public gardens and parks?
It would not be an easy matter to thin out the sparrows, or utterly to destroy them, but it could be done, and our wild birds could be enticed back, and less money and time be spent in fighting insect pests. The birds’ little beaks will do more effective work than all our spraying and tree-climbing.