XXIII
PROCESSION OF BIRD FAMILIES

INDEX

CHAPTER I

OVERTURE BY THE BIRDS

"We would have you to wit, that on eggs though we sit,
And are spiked on the spit, and are baked in a pan;
Birds are older by far than your ancestors are,
And made love and made war, ere the making of man!"

(_Andrew Lang_.)

A party of Swallows perched on the telegraph wires beside the highway
where it passed Orchard Farm. They were resting after a breakfast of
insects, which they had caught on the wing, after the custom of their
family. As it was only the first of May they had plenty of time before
nest-building, and so were having a little neighborly chat.

If you had glanced at these birds carelessly, you might have thought
they were all of one kind; but they were not. The smallest was the Bank
Swallow, a sober-hued little fellow, with a short, sharp-pointed tail,
his back feathers looking like a dusty brown cloak, fastened in front by
a neck-band between his light throat and breast.

Next to him perched the Barn Swallow, a bit larger, with a tail like an
open pair of glistening scissors and his face and throat a beautiful
ruddy buff. There were so many glints of color on his steel-blue back
and wings, as he spread them in the sun, that it seemed as if in some of
his nights he must have collided with a great soap-bubble, which left
its shifting hues upon him as it burst.

This Barn Swallow was very much worried about something, and talked so
fast to his friend the Tree Swallow, that his words sounded like
twitters and giggles; but you would know they were words, if you could
only understand them.

The Tree Swallow wore a greenish-black cloak and a spotless white vest.
He was trying to be polite and listen to the Barn Swallow as well as to
the Purple Martin (the biggest Swallow of all), who was a little further
along on the wire; but as they both spoke at once, he found it a
difficult matter.

"We shall all be turned out, I know," complained the Barn Swallow, "and
after we have as good as owned Orchard Farm these three years, it is too
bad. Those meddlesome House People have put two new pieces of glass in
the hayloft window, and how shall I ever get in to build my nest?"

"They may leave the window open," said the Bank Swallow soothingly, for
he had a cheerful disposition; "I have noticed that hayloft windows are
usually left open in warm weather."

"Yes, they may leave it open, and then shut it