OF SELBORNE. 201 
to its hybernaculum just at hand, taan return fora — 
week or two only to warmer latitudes. 
The swallow, though called the chimney-swal- 
low, 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 Jadu 
swala, the barn-swallow, Besides, in the warmer 
parts of Europe there are no chimneys to houses, 
except they are English built: in these countries 
she constructs her nest in porches, and gateways, 
and galleries, and open halls. 
Here and there a bird may affect some odd, pe- 
culiar 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 genéral, with us this hirundo 
builds 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 imme. 
diate 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 ob- 
served with some degree of wonder. 
Five or six, or more feet down the chimney, does 
this little bird begin to form her nest about the 
middle of May, which consists, like that of the 
# house-martin, of a crust or shell composed of dirt 
or mud, mixed with short pieces of straw to render 
it tough and permanent ; with this difference, that 
¥ . : 
whereas the shell of the martin 1s nearly hemi- 
