Chit-chat. 5 



my house was accidentally left open, and a pair of rustic 

 swallows built their fretted nest among the rafters, at which 

 I was much pleased : and when they had hatched and reared 

 their young, both they, and their parents, finding they were 

 favourites, continued to play about the room all summer; and 

 always roosted in it at night. Before they departed, a thought 

 struck me to play them an innocent trick. One night I shut 

 the window-sash, and took them all in an angler's landing- 

 net, and fastened round their necks, without hurting them in 

 the least, rings made of the very fine wire that laps the lower 

 strings of a violoncello. At this they took no offence, but 

 played about till their departure. At their appointed period 

 they vanished, with their friends. The following spring the 

 window was carefully set open for their admission ; and they 

 came accordingly, after " the daffodils had taken the winds of 

 March with beauty;'' and, to my great delight, four had the 

 rings. One pair re-occupied the old nest, and another pair, 

 or more, built in the room. Emboldened by their kindness 

 and constancy, having a pretty little Greek story, you well 

 know, in my mind, I ventured, in addition to the light wire, to 

 affix on the neck of one, a thin round smooth piece of copper, on 

 which 1 engraved, in Latin (being the tongue most universally 

 known), Quo abis d Salopid? [Whither away from Shrop- 

 shire ?] But whether he perished, or whether he met with 

 his friend the gentle Athenian, I wot not : for, alas ! he 

 returned unto me no more. 



Von Os. This, then, establishes your opinion, that migra- 

 tory birds, or their progeny, or both, do return, year after 

 year, to the very same places. 



Dov. Yes ; unless I was played a trick. 



Von Os. Perhaps the extraordinary success of the circum- 

 stance induces you to suspect a trick ? 



Dov. Partly so : and partly that for many years, and at 

 that time, a young gentleman resided at our then worthy old 

 rector's, his guardian, an orphan boy, who had an incessant, 

 and I may say rabid, propensity to playing practical tricks 

 upon all sorts of people ; but most particularly on whom he 

 called philosophers, and the fair sex. He assisted me to fix 

 the wires upon the birds, and might have fixed wires on 

 others at their return. 



Von Os. I know whom you mean : he was inexhaystible 

 in tricks ridiculously wanton, and ingeniously malignant. 



Dov. From which it was impossible to reclaim him by the 

 kindest admonitions and severest punishments. 



Von Os. I was at school with him; and one of his"* tricks 

 there, was to watch the algebraical students from their studies, 



B 3 



