07

The Swallows Learn a Lesson

Did you know that birds have lessons to learn? This story tells about a hard lesson that all young swallows must learn.

Did you ever watch swallows flying around a barn-yard, and did you notice that they darted about instead of going straight ahead?

Most other birds fly straight ahead because they are just going from one place to another. But the swallows dart all around because they are catching flies and other insects in the air. They do not like to eat crumbs and seeds, as many other birds do, and the insects they catch are their only food.

So a young swallow has to learn to dart after insects and catch them a s they fly through the air. How does he learn to do this so well? The older birds teach him.

One summer day I saw a father and a mother swallow teaching their little ones how to get their food. Three young swallows, almost as big as their mother and father, were sitting on a telephone wire.

They seemed frightened at the big world about them. How far it looked down to the ground, and how high it looked up to the sky! So the young swallows sat close to each other on the wire.

Every little while their mother or father would fly up to them and flutter about them. Then the baby swallows would all tip up their heads and open their mouths just as wide as they could.

At once the mother or father bird would drop a fly or other insect into one of the open mouths, and then dart away to get more food for the young swallows. They did this for a long time.

At last the older birds thought that it was time for the baby swallows to learn a lesson. They flew to the young birds, but this time they did not bring them anything to eat.

The mother and the father birds brushed their wings against the young swallows and made them leave the telephone wire. Then the whole family flew away together.

In a little while the mother swallow darted off by herself, and then flew back to one of the young birds. She fluttered her wings to hold herself up, and held out an insect in her bill.

Oh, how the little bird wished that he were sitting quietly in his nest. There it would be easy for him to get the insect, while here it was not easy at all.

But his flying had made him very hungry indeed. So he fluttered his wings to hold himself up, as his mother was doing, and snapped quickly with his little bill. To the young swallow's surprise, he caught the insect. And, best of all, he had now learned his first lesson in getting his food while he was in the air.

The two other young birds learned the same lesson. After that, the mother and father birds made their children dart about, and showed them how to catch insects that were flying around.

Never again did the young swallows wait for the older birds to bring them food. They had found out that it was far more fun to dart about in the air than to sit quietly in a nest or on a telephone wire. All summer long they darted here and there and filled their little crops with hundreds and hundreds of flies and other insects.

But what did the swallows do when winter time came and there were no insects in the air? They flew far away to the South,where it is always warm. In that land they found plenty of things to dart after in the bright sunshine. There they stayed until spring came back to the North.

1. What do swallows eat?

2. How do they get their food?

3. How were the young swallows in this story fed before they learned to get their own food?

4. What lesson did the mother and father birds teach the young swallows?

5. Where do the swallows go in the winter time? Why?