THE WIRE-TAILED SWALLOW 151 



the chimney swallow, by no means builds altogether 

 in chimneys, but often within barns and outhouses 

 against the rafters, and so she did in Virgil's time : 



'Ante 

 Garrula quam tignis nidos suspendat hirundo/ 



" In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called 

 ladu swala, the barn swallow. Besides, in the warmer 

 parts of Europe there are no chimneys to houses, 

 except they are English-built. In those countries 

 she constructs her nest in porches and gateways 

 and galleries and open halls. Here and there a bird 

 may affect some odd, peculiar place, as we have 

 known a swallow build down the shaft of an old well 

 through which chalk had been formerly drawn up 

 for the purpose of manure ; but in general with us 

 this Hirundo breeds in chimneys, and loves to haunt 

 those stacks where there is a constant fire, no doubt 

 for the sake of warmth. Not that it can subsist in 

 the immediate shaft where there is a fire, but prefers 

 one adjoining to that of the kitchen, and disregards 

 the perpetual smoke of that funnel, as I have often 

 observed with some degree of wonder." 



In the days before man began to build substantial 

 houses for his habitation, the swallows can have 

 nested only in caverns and under natural ledges in 

 cliffs, so cannot have existed in anything like their 

 present numbers. Hirundo rustica is a common bird 

 in India. During the winter it spreads itself over 

 the plains, and may be seen, as in England, dashing 

 through the air after tiny insects. In the East the 



