74 LEAVES FROM THE 



slight flesh-coloured tinge is due to the semi-transparency 

 of the egg-shell. 



On the 16th of May, being on a shooting expedition 

 on the top of Pocano Mountain, Northampton, when the 

 ice on that and on several successive mornings was more 

 than a quarter of an inch thick, Wilson observed with 

 surprise a pair of these swallows which had taken up 

 their abode on a miserable cabin there. It was then 

 about sunrise, the ground white with hoar-frost, and the 

 male was twittering on the roof by the side of his mate 

 with great sprightliness.* The man of the house told 

 him that a single pair came regularly there every season, 

 and built their nest on a projecting beam under the eaves, 

 about six or seven feet from the ground. At the bottom 

 of the mountain, in a large barn belonging to the tavern 

 there, Wilson counted twenty nests, all seemingly occu- 

 pied. In the woods, he says, they are never met with ; 

 but as you approach a farm they soon catch the eye, 

 cutting their gambols in the air. Scarcely a barn to 

 which these birds can find access is without them; and 

 as public feeling is universally in their favour, they are 

 seldom or never disturbed. The proprietor of the large 

 barn above-mentioned, a German, assured Wilson, that 

 if a man permitted the swallows to be shot, his cows 

 would give bloody milk, and also that no barn where 

 swallows frequented would ever be struck with lightning : 

 — ' I nodded assent,' adds this charming and amiable 

 writer : ' when the tenets of superstition lean to the side 

 of humanity, one can readily respect them.' 



* Our swallow is equally matutinal ; and our own Gray has 

 truly and pathetically associated it with the other early riu-al 

 sounds : — 



The breezy call of incense-breathing morn. 



The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed. 

 The cock's shrill clarion or the echoing horn. 

 No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 



