SWALLOWS. 95 



An instance of delayed migration came under my 

 observation on 27th September. On the abatement 

 of a storm of wind and rain I happened to go to 

 Tillietudlem Castle, and, although I kept watch dur- 

 ing the journey, I did not observe a single swallow. 

 They had even deserted the hoary pile itself, which 

 looked sadly monotonous without the hir undines. 

 Nor did a walk down the river, which was heavy in 

 flood, reveal a swallow, until the inn at the village 

 was reached. Here I came upon a bevy of brown- 

 throats careering over the orchard in front of the 

 inn. The orchard is so happily sheltered that 

 except from its being saturated with the drench- 

 ing rains it bore no other mark of the storm. 

 The upper branches of the trees were bent in 

 circles with the weight of red and yellow fruit. 

 As the sky was lowering the swallows did not soar, 

 but twittered over and through the orchard with 

 an airy celerity peculiarly their own. I do not 

 think I ever saw the colour of swallows — red throats 

 and white rumps — appear so beautiful as in contrast 

 with the reds, yellows, and greens of this fruit- 

 laden orchard. The interest was increased by 

 a group of newly-flighted swallows resting on a 

 fork-shaped tree devoid of branches, in character 

 not unlike the tree in Watt's well-known picture of 

 a dove on her nest in the unconcealed fork of a 

 tree — the dove that on the abating of the waters 

 •did not return to the ark. On this tree sat some 

 half-dozen young swallows, while the old birds fed 

 them from the wing. The young birds sometimes 

 silently accepted their food without leaving the 

 forked stump on which they sat; but more fre- 

 quently the bird whose turn it was to be fed would 

 joyously meet its parent on the wing, and then both 

 birds rising perpendicularly would for a moment, by 

 the meeting of their bills, form a pointed arch. The 

 act of feeding over, the young bird returned to its 

 former place, the adult departing in search of more 

 food. One swallow, the down on which I could see 



