Bird Stories

or Eve and Petro. It was the one hundredth anniversary of the year wh

ir eggs and killed for their feathers; shooting movements had been organized to kill crows with shotgun or rifle, in order that more gunpowder might be sold; the people of Alaska had been permitted to kill more than eight thousand eagles in the last great breedi

er of their fellow creatures of the world, who had a right to the life that had been given them as surely

started forth to seek a cliff, just as their ancestors had done for the hundred years or so sin

r springtime work. It was very high and very straight. Its wall was of boards, and the

e the ones that pleased them best. Yes, civilization had been kind to them and had made more cliffs than Nature had built for them; though perhaps it was Mother Nature, herself, who taught the

undisturbed by the ladder that was soon put near, and unafraid of the people who climbed up to watch them at their work. They w

e Christian churches, and that to-day in the New World they play in and out of the dark arches in the great churches of far Brazil and flash across the gilding of the very tabern

lows bring luck to the house. I think so myself, don't you?-that it is very good for

t the associations of one short century had been pleasant enough to call forth many cheerful squeakings of joy, just like

eir hods of plaster to carry way up near the top of their cliff. No, they needed no

eir backs, then? No. In their claws? Oh, no, their feet were far too feeble for bearing loads. Do you remember what Corbie used for a berry-pail wh

ll, she clung to the straight wall with her little feet, which she kept nearly in one place, and, swinging her body about, hitch by hitch, she struck out her curve with her beak

place where they gathered the plaster was not handy by, and

as if saying, "Now, don't get in my way and bother me, dear." So he would have to fly about while he waited for her to go. The minute she was ready to be off, he would be slipping into her place; and this time she would giv

of-fact way, pushed out his lump of plaster with his tongue, on top of the nest wall. Then he braced his body firmly in th

with the top of his closed beak. He got his face dirty doing it, too, even the pretty pale feather crescent moon on his forehead. But that didn't matter. Trowels, if they do useful work, have to ge

one, for there was a whole colony of swallows building under the eaves of that same ba

ampled the ground until it was oozy and the water stood in tiny pools in their hoof prints, the swallows stopped. They put down their beaks into the mud and gathered it i

thing like that the people made in Egypt years and years ago. And do you remember how the story goes that the folk in Pharaoh's day gathered straws to mix with the clay, so that their bricks

n the Pla

they used was the same one the Egyptians used in the days of Pharaoh-a fire that had never in all that time gone out, but had glowed steadily centu

unted low over the meadow. They hunted afar off along the stream and they hunted near by in the barnyard. And all the game they caught they captured on the wing, and the

mouths were tired of being hods for clay they could not eat. Perhaps the fresh p

meals; and whenever they were doing that, they were working for the owner of the barn, paying their rent for the house-lot on the wall

nting

birds because of a superstition that, if he did, his cows wouldn't give so much milk. Well, maybe they wouldn't if all the flies a colony of swallows

ir comrades lasted about fifteen minutes eac

plaster waiting for Eve to go if he chanced to come before she was through. They always chatted a bit and then went on with their work, placing their plaster carefully an

gs? How large would it have to be inside, to hold four or five young swallows grown big enough for their first flight? How thick would the walls have to be to make it strong enough? What sort of curve would be best for its support against a perfectly straight wall? How much space would have to be allowed for

m one more: ask him if he could make such a nest with t

shaped just right; and when it was nearly done and nearly ready for the sof

und and spoiled, oh, quite spoiled. There is a saying that it brings bad luck to do harm

then went on with their work,

, and their faith was broken and crumbled, too. In dismay they cried out when they saw what was happening, and in dismay their swallow comrades cried out with them. Fear and disappointment entered their quick hearts, which had been beating in conf

and had laid his quiet hand upon the lower curve of the nest while Eve and Petro went on with their building at the upper edge. And he had seen the colors of their feathers and the shape of the pale crescent on their foreheads-the mark a man named Say had noticed many years before, when he nam

ched Eve and Petro push the pellets of mud from their mouths with their tongues and bunt the wall of their clay nest smooth on the inside with the top of their closed beaks, not stopping even though they brushed their pretty chestnut-colored cheeks against the sticky mud, or got specks on the feathers of their dainty foreheads that

ut such affairs of these two birds as could only be learned close to them. Nor, indeed, was there any way to learn those things from the rest of the colony; for it so ch

er mouth with her tongue and bunting it smooth in her own cunning way. He might have laid his head against the ladder and heard their cosy voices as they squeaked pleasantly together over the home-building. He might have looked at the colors of their feathers, and seen where they were glossy black with a greenish sheen, where rich purply chestnut, and whe

his hand, and he threw it away when he struck the nes

Clay

rge colony of swallows were building; and, because there was no closely protecting roof, these swallows were making the round part of their nest closed over at the top with a winding hallway to an outer doorway. They looked, indeed, like a row of quaint clay pottery, sh

s of cows; but there was a track where the automobiles slushed through sticky mud,

wo doorways open, one facing the southwest and one facing the southeast. And some days after this was done, had you gone to the foot of their cliff and used a pair of field-glasses, you might have seen Eve's head sticking out of one door and

the nest, clung outside with their tiny feet and stuck their heads in at the open doorway for a brief moment before they were off again. Their nest was too far up for anyon

ittle ones inside crowding about too recklessly, so that there was danger of one falling out? Had

curious nests were fastened. Their doorways knew them no more; but over the meadows from dawn till nearly dusk there

little feet might cling to slender stems of be

were the hunting grounds of South America, where they must be fli

ers of the swallow flock that we could not tell who they were, now that t

sand even are nothing if the hunting be good. Might just as well be flying south, as back and forth over the same meadow the livelong day, with now and then a rest on the roadside wires, which fit his littl

he children, here and there, waved their hands to them and called, "Good hunting, little

us Lan