138 THE SWALLOW. 



with ashy-grey and brown, are laid ; and while the female is 

 sitting the male frequently visits her, and cheers her with 

 his song. When the young are hatched the parents are 

 continually on the wing in search of food for their nestlings 

 from early dawn ^ until it becomes dark, and may then be 

 seen sweeping round houses and other buildings, skimming 

 over grass fields where cattle are feeding, along the edges of 

 woods, or over the surface of water, and returning to the 

 nest every few minutes to feed the young. Two broods are 

 reared in the season. The young of the first brood, after 

 leaving the place where they were reared, collect together 

 into flocks, and may be seen resting on telegraph wires and 

 roosting on trees. They are believed to migrate southwards 

 in the end of August and beginning of September, and are 

 followed by the old birds and the young of the second 

 brood towards the end of the latter month. Shortly before 

 this time these may be seen assembling into great flocks, 

 and sitting on the roofs of churches,^ barns, and other high 

 buildings, such as Marchmont House, and the County Build- 

 ings at Greenlaw, preparatory to their southern journey. 



The Swallows now disown 



The roofs they loved before ; 

 Each, like his tuneful genius, flown 



To greet some happier shore. 



Shenstone. 



After the main body has left, a few sometimes linger on a 

 little later, and, in 1867, one was observed at The Hirsel as 

 late as the 10th of November.^ 



1 I have heard them twittering on the wing round my house at Paxton 

 between one and two o'clock in the morning in July. 



2 The late Rev. William Stobbs, Grordon, records that the favourite rendezvous 

 of the Swallows in that district, before setting out for the south, is the church 

 roof at Gordon, or the steading at Greenknowe, 



3 The following anecdote of a Swallow was communicated to the Berwick- 

 shire Naturalists' Club by the late Earl of Home :— " On the 7th Nov. last 



1867], long after the Swallows had taken their departure, a Swallow, probably 



