She brings all the material
and does all the work of building, he looking on and encouraging her
with gesture and song. He acts also as inspector of her work, but I
fear is a very partial one. She enters the nest with her bit of dry
grass or straw, and, having adjusted it to her notion, withdraws and
waits near by while he goes in and looks it over. On coming out he
exclaims very plainly, "Excellent! Excellent!" and away the two go
again for more material.
The bluebirds, when they build about the farm buildings, sometimes
come into contact with the swallows. The past season I knew a pair to
take forcible possession of the domicile of a pair of the latter,--the
cliff species that now stick their nests under the eaves of the barn.
The bluebirds had been broken up in a little bird-house near by, by
the rats or perhaps a weasel, and being no doubt in a bad humor, and
the season being well advanced, they made forcible entrance into the
adobe tenement of their neighbors, and held possession of it for some
days, but I believe finally withdrew, rather than live amid such a
squeaky, noisy colony. I have heard that these swallows, when ejected
from their homes in that way by the phoebe-bird, have been known to
fall to and mason up the entrance to the nest while their enemy was
inside of it, thus having a revenge as complete and cruel as anything
in human annals.
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