94 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



"ayes" and the "noes" as to the propriety of retir- 

 ing for the night. However that may be, when they 

 had wholly settled they rose in a body, as if by 

 preconcerted arrangement, blackening the air, and 

 almost instantly alighted on some bushes on the 

 south side of the mausoleum. At the moment I 

 thought it strange that the swallows should avoid 

 the larger varieties of stately trees that here adorn 

 the Palace grounds, and where one would naturally 

 expect that they would roost securer from ground 

 enemies than among the tiny twigs that trembled 

 with the weight of a single bird. But no — the 

 swallows were at home in these ground-thickets. 

 Although pre-eminently a bird of the day, and the 

 acrobat of the sky, the swallow, like the coney and 

 the bat, retires to a hole ; and this habit of thus 

 concealing itself has made it both miner and mason, 

 earth-worm and steeple- jack. 



Not having previously seen swallows so located, I 

 was curious to know what course they would pursue 

 if disturbed; and when it became so dark that from 

 where I was standing I could no longer see the 

 branches moving, I cautiously walked close to one 

 of the bushes and found the birds asleep. I caught 

 several in my hand, and on letting them go they 

 darted into the bush in the most matter-of-fact 

 fashion, while on further rousing the birds by shak- 

 ing the bush with my walking-stick, without one 

 word of protest they circled back and settled in the 

 bush from which I had somewhat cruelly dislodged 

 them. On the following day, the weather being 

 fine, the swallows hunted the sunny sides of the 

 enclosures, returning to the mausoleum in the after- 

 noon, and at night they again took to the bushes, 

 the grass beneath which had literally become white 

 with their droppings. I give it on the authority of 

 a resident that the swallows came and went, in- 

 creasing in numbers till the 15th, when they dis- 

 appeared, as did also the general flights from the 

 West of Scotland. 



