or nursery. Nearly all the time might be seen half a
dozen or more waiting patiently for a morsel from some of their elders
circling about over their heads, and such a chatter as they kept up!
They whispered softly among themselves when their parents were away, and
called in squeaky little voices with fluttering wings as one of the
elders approached. Whether the young in these social nurseries know
their particular parents has always been an interesting question with
me, and I studied their ways for some clew to the truth. I noticed when
one of the parents swooped over them or came near, to alight, not more
than one or two of the waiting babies on the wire would flutter and ask
for food, and I saw also, on such occasions, that they were usually fed.
When somewhat later another parent came near, a different little one
would ask and be fed. They did not all, or even any great number, ask
every time an old bird came about, which certainly looked as if the
little ones knew their own parents.

After a while the swallows came out in great numbers. There were
hundreds at a time on the telegraph wires, all, both old and young,
talking at once--as it appeared. They had flight exercises, when the
whole flock rose at once, filling the air with wings. This gathering
continued for three or four days, while all other birds seemed to have
disappeared, and then one morning they were gone to the marsh, where we
often saw them afterward, and the other birds returned to their usual
haunts.

X.

IN A COLORADO NOOK.

The loveliest nook I know is one of nature's wild gardens, on the banks
of the "Shining Water," at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. It is
forever fresh and green in my memory. Let me picture it for you, dear
reader, as I saw it last.

It is June, and we are sitting under a low tree buried up to our
shoulders in a luxuriant growth of weeds. Before us towers beautiful
Cheyenne, its wonderful red rocks gorgeous in the morning sun; above us
stretches the violet-blue sky, while all about us, filling our lungs,
and bracing and invigorating our whole being, is the glorious mountain
air of Colorado. Outside our shady nook the sunshine glows and burns,
but we are cool and comfortable.

The little field between our seat and the mountain is all given up to
weeds, with here and there a small oak-tree, and shut in by a hedge of
oak saplings and low willows. I say weeds, but think not of an eastern
weed-grown spot; imagine ne