110 THE BIRDS OF OXPOEDSHIEE. 



the air, making the sunshine still more golden as it gleams 



on the yellow stubble and the hedge-maple, already turned, 



and flaming out gorgeously in its dress o£ red and gold ; still 



when 



'. . . gathering swallows twitter in the skies,' 



or congregate on the sloping roofs or the topmost twigs of 

 some spreading walnut tree, we feel instinctively that it 

 cannot be many weeks before the leaves will have fallen, 

 the fields will be wet and sodden, the air cold and raw, that 

 November will be come, — November with all its sportsman^s 

 joys, which nevertheless must always be to the majority 

 of people our dreary season, from which the Swallows fly, as 

 in spring they fly from the dust and heat of those southern 

 lands, where they have passed the winter months, back to the 

 fresh green island, their home. 



'And something awoke in the slumbering heart 

 Of the alien birds in their African air, 

 And they paused, and alighted, and twittered apart, 

 And met in the broad, white, dreamy square, 

 And the sad slave woman, who lifted up 

 From the fountain her broad-lipped earthern cup. 

 Said to herself with a weary sigh, 

 To-morrow the swallows will northward fly ! ' ^ ,^ 



THE HOUSE MARTIN. 



Chelidon nrhica. 

 The House Mai'tin is an abundant summer visitor, arriving 

 from the second to the last week in April, but sometimes not 

 until May. Although the greater number have left by early 

 October, a few are often seen up to the end of that month, 

 and I have known young Martins (probably a third brood) 

 still in the nest on the I7tli. In November they have been 

 observed by Mr. T. Goatley on the i8th in 1830 [Loudon s 

 Magazine of Natural History^ 1^31^ P- 43 1); ^^d. the 28th in 

 1837 {Zoologist, p. 2^'>y^. In December one was seen at 

 Henley-on-Thames as late as the i8th in 1880 [Zoologist, 

 1 881, p. 62). Martins always linger very late at Oxford. 



