THE SWALLOW. 137 



The draught of warm air, however, loosened a quantity of 

 rubbish in the chimney, among which were the remains of 

 a nest of Swallows that had been hatched too late, and had 

 been left behind by the parents to perish. In another 

 house in the same village, the birds had frequented a 

 chimney for more than fifty years.^ In 1846 a pair built 

 in the chimney of an outhouse attached to an inn in Ayton, 

 a fire being lighted only on ' washing days,' when the boys 

 of the village used to watch the exit and entry of the birds 

 at the top of the chimney. At an old mill near that village 

 a pair were accustomed to build regularly every year on a 

 projecting piece of wood in the top of the chimney of the 

 kiln, in the midst of smoke and no slight heat." Mr. John 

 Pringle, joiner, Paxton House, has informed me that, about 

 forty-five years ago, Swallows used to build in the chimney 

 of his workshop in Paxton village, which is one of the old 

 wide kind in use long ago, and where a fire was only 

 occasionally lighted in winter.^ 



The Swallow . . . 



Is well to chancels and to chimneys known, 



Though 'tis not thought she feeds on smoke alone. 



Dryden. 



The saucer-like nest is formed of small pieces of moist 

 earth collected by the bird at the sides of ponds or 

 pools, and built, with the addition of short pieces of straw 

 and stick, into the required shape. After the nest has 

 been warmly lined with feathers, the eggs, which are from 

 four to six in number, and are white, blotched and speckled 



1 Mr. Lees, Public Scliool, Whitsome, informed me on 26th August 1887, 

 that Mr. James Grieve, shoemaker in that village, who is eighty years old, 

 remembers Swallows building in the chimneys of Whitsome village fifty or 

 sixty years ago. 



2 Although the chimney still remains as it was long ago, no Swallows have 

 built in it for forty years. It would appear that owing to the general improve- 

 ment which has taken place in the construction of chimneys in the county, the 

 Swallows have changed their former habits, for they do not now nest in chimneys. 



