136 THE SWALLOW. 



the land of the myrtle and olive, it passes over the Alps by 

 well-known routes/ and speedily reaches our shores. 



The Swallow dreams on Afric's shore 



Of Scotia's summer pride, 

 And plumes her wing and knows the hour 



To hasten to Tweedside. 



The cliflf or scaur she kens afar, 



And towering ruins grey, 

 Where she was nursed in Dryburgh's bower 



The lap of flowery May. 



John Younger 



Its arrival in Berwickshire generally takes place about the 

 26th of April, the earliest record for the last eighty-five 

 years being on the 11th of April 1803, and the latest on the 

 11th of May 1850.^ It has usually paired when it comes, 

 and shortly afterwards, with much joyous twittering, it 

 proceeds to mend the old nest of the previous year, or to 

 select a suitable site for a new one, which is often under the 

 open roof of some barn, shed, or other building, and some- 

 times on the rafters beneath the eaves of a dwelling-house,^ 

 The Rev. Gilbert White, in his delightful Natural 

 History of Selborne, mentions that in his time the Swallow 

 constantly built in chimneys ; and this appears to have 

 been its habit long ago in Berwickshire also, when the old 

 wide " lums " were in use. Mr. Hardy relates that " in 

 1841 there was a room in a house in Whitsome village in 

 which there had not been a fire for a long time, and when 

 one was at last lighted the vent was found to be stopped. 



i " It is well known to naturalists that Swallows cross the Alps by certain 

 passes, as is also done by other species, regularly every year. I am informed 

 by Mr. A. B. Herbert that some of the favourite Alpine passes for the annual 

 migration of birds are the Albula and Berniua Passes into the Adda Valley and 

 Lake Como, returning the same way in spring." — J. A. Harvie-Brown, in 

 Fourth Report on the Migration of Birds, 1882, p. 70. 



'■^ See Ornithological Calendar for Berwickshire, in the Appendix, at the end 

 of vol. ii. of this work. 



•* Several pairs have nested on the ends of tlie rafters under the eaves of my 

 house at Paxtou for the last seven or eiglit years. 



