The
wood-swallow wears a becoming suit of soft pearly grey and white, to
contrast with its black head and throat. It has a graceful, soaring
flight and a cheerful chirrup. At certain seasons scores congregate on a
branch, perching in a row, so closely compact that their breasts show as
a continuous band of white. When one leaves his place to catch an insect,
the others close up the ranks and dress the line, and on returning,
wrangle and scold as he may, he needs must take an outside place. Let a
bush fire be started, and flocks of wood-swallows whirl and circle along
the flanks of the circling smoke, taking flying insects on the wing, or
deftly pick "thin, high-elbowed creatures," scuttling up tree-trunks out
of the way of the flames. Those were the marauders who confounded
anticipations of a comfortable livelihood in the decent calling of an
apiarist. They devoured bees by the hundred every day. Every hive paid
dreadful toll to them, for they found food so plentiful, and with so
little exertion, that they made the vicinity of the hives a permanent
abiding place. For a brief season I found myself confronted by a problem.
I had to apply my own favourite theories and arguments to myself and
weigh against them practical advantages.
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