156 THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



Helmsley ; only one of the birds showed signs of animation, 

 and it soon collapsed. 



During the whole of the winter of 1895 two of these 

 birds took up their quarters in an old barn at Elton Wold, 

 near Beverley, and remained until the new-comers in spring 

 had appeared ; but a most circumstantial statement is 

 given, by the Rev. T. Powell, of two wintering at Healey 

 Vicarage, near Masham, in 1895-6, as follows : — 



" They were members of a very late brood of four hatched 

 in a nest under the slates inside our cowhouse. I may here 

 mention that a pair of Swallows nest every year in the same 

 place. The two Swallows in question were seen flying about 

 by members of my family long after the other Swallows 

 had disappeared. They finally lodged above the lintel of 

 the cowhouse door, squeezing themselves into a small hole 

 in the stonework, and thus escaping the draught. When 

 I saw them the tail was the only part of their bodies that was 

 at all conspicuous. My eldest son, then sixteen years old, 

 had them both in his hand at the beginning of last Christmas 

 holidays. They were in a drowsy condition and did not 

 attempt to fly when he gave them the chance. On very fine 

 days, as he informs me, he saw them flying for about two 

 hours in the middle of the day from eleven to one o'clock. 

 One of the Swallows died some time in the spring, the other 

 left its winter quarters shortly before the return of the 

 Swallows (in April), and was a conspicuous object among 

 its fellows during spring and early summer through having 

 lost one of the forks of its tail. It mated with another 

 Swallow, and they attempted to nest in the pigsty, which 

 joins the cowhouse, but this came to nothing — the lowness 

 of the roof of the pigsty most likely causing them to desist 

 from the attempt." {Field, 2nd January 1897.) 



The selection of breeding sites of this bird does not vary 

 greatly, though at Campsall Hall a pair for several years 

 successively attempted to build in the upper corner of the 

 entrance hall (Neville Wood's Nat. 1837) 5 another pair built 

 a nest, in June 1887, and reared its brood, on the curtain 

 pole overhanging a staircase window of a country house near 



