78 LEAVES FROM THE 



edification of tliose who may wish to make the experi- 

 ment: — 



About nine weeks ago (writes the good clergyman), a swallow 

 fell down one of our chimneys, nearly fledged, and was able to fly 

 in two or three days. The children desired they might try to 

 rear him, to which I agreed, fearing the old ones would desert 

 him ; and as he was not the least shy they succeeded without any 

 difliculty, for he opened his mouth for flies as fast as they could 

 supply them, and was regularly fed to a whistle. In a few days, 

 perhaps a week, they used to take him into the fields with them, 

 and as each child found a fly and whistled, the little bird flew for 

 his prey from one to another ; at other times he would fly round 

 about them in the air, but always descended at the first call, in 

 spite of the constant endeavours of the wild swallows to seduce 

 him away : for which pm-pose several of them at once would fly 

 about him in all directions, striving to drive him away when they 

 saw him about to settle on one of the children's hands, extended 

 with the food. He would very often alight on the children, 

 uncalled, when they were walking several fields distant from 

 home. 



What a charming sketch of innocence and benevo- 

 lence, heightened by the anxiety of the pet's relations 

 to win him away from beings whom they must have 

 looked upon as so many young ogres ! The poor flies, 

 it is true, darken the picture a little ; but to proceed 

 with the narrative : — 



Our little inmate was never made a prisoner by being put into a 

 cage, but always ranged about the room at large wherever the 

 children were, and they never went out of doors without taking 

 him with them. Sometimes he would sit on their hands or heads 

 and catch flies for himself, which he soon did with great dexterity. 

 At length, finding it take up too much of their time to supply him 

 with food enough to satisfy his appetite (for I have no doubt he 

 ate from seven hundred to a thousand flies a-day), they used to 

 turn him out of the house, shutting the window to prevent his 

 return for two or three hours together, in hopes he would learn to 

 cater for himself, which he soon did ; but still was no less tame, 

 always answering their call, and coming in at the window to them 

 (of his own accord) frequently every day, and always roosting in 

 their room, which he has regularly done from the first till within 

 a week or ten days past. He constantly roosted on one of the 



