A TRUE STORY ABOUT SWALLOWS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20233, 17 February 1934, Page 18 (Supplement)

A TRUE STORY ABOUT SWALLOWS.

A pair of swallows have visited our low shed again, building in the angle of the beams as they have so often done before. But this time something quite unusual happened. You have all seen a swallows’ nest, I feel sure—a little muddy, cup-shaped structure stuck up so close to the roof and so cosily lined with feathers. Now, it happened that a pair of boys, friends of mine, and great bird lovers, discovered my swallows nest, and by swinging themselves along on the beam they could look like right in. They assured me it was “ quite all right.” They were not out to destroy, but to admire. I knew this was quite true, but somehow I felt uncomfortable, for I was sure the swallow, though he builds under one roof, does not wish us to call on him at close quarters. I learned from my boy friends one day that there were three eggs in the nest, and the next time they came to see me they told me there were young* swallows there. Later on they discovered that when the parent bird left the nest the young ones were hidden under a covering of loose feathers, so that a casual observer would think that the nest was an untidy, empty one. Time passed, and the young swallows were fully fledged and learning to fly, when one morning the elder of the two boys came to me with such a bewildered and wistful look and a plea for me to come with him to the shed. I went, and to my amazement found the young swallows—so full-grown as to appear too big for the nest—quite dead, their bright eyes wide open, the plumage unruffled ! The boys were inconsolable, and visited the shed no more. I did, however, and found that the parent birds were building again in the next angle of the roof beams. I said nothing, and did not go near again until nearly the end of the summer, when, to my joy, I found three fullgrown young swallows learning to fly. In fact, one almost touched me as it scurried and flurried around. A few days later I crept out again, and I found they were roosting on the beam and no longer in the nest. In my joy I told a mason, who was mending a chimney nearby, the story of the first nestlings. He was so interested, and came down from his ladder to see this second brood. “Now/’ said he, “that is very strange, but the same thing happened when I w T as a lad and when some other boys had been watching a nest of goldfinches. But in those days,” he continued, “the old folks told us that when boys or girls watched young goldfinches in the nest the parent birds poisoned them.” Now, childrert, what do you think of this true tale? Don’t you agree with me that as caged birds will die of fright on being watched by cats, so little wild bird nestlings die in * the same way through the too-great attention pf little humans? “ Mummy, is it tea time yet, please?” “No, dear; it’s an hour off yet.” “ Oh, dear! My tummy must be fast! ” Dulcie Hardy (Jackson’s).