HIRUNDO RUSTIOA. 



195 



the nest will hold. On the 12th of October 1889, in noticing 

 " a pair of belated swallows," the press said : — 



" In Millport a pair of swallows are presently engaged in rearing a brood 

 of five young ones. When the rest of the swallows had taken their depar- 

 ture, this pair were busily engaged in building a second nest in a corner of 

 one of the windows of the Cumbrae Hotel. Great interest is being taken 

 in them, as it is such an unusual occurrence to see swallows nestling at this 

 late season." 



They would likely be the window swallows, but it only 

 shows the deviations of Nature. No doubt these late birds 

 would instinctively find their way over the ocean to their 

 summer homes as well as the rest. They rear their young with 

 us, and renew their plumage by moulting abroad. From experi- 

 ments in confinement, swallows do not moult like other birds 

 on the approach of winter, but in February, before they revisit 

 their summer haunts. They leave us with their plumage worn 

 about the time other birds renew their's. They have been tested 

 to live without food for a week, which may suit them for their 

 long flight across the sea. Previous to their departure in 

 October, they congregate on high roofs, such as kirks, and on 

 telegraph wires, which is taken advantage of by man ; at least a 

 paragraph headed " Slaughter of Swallows" lately appeared in 

 the Daily Telegraph : — 



"Paris. — A slaughter of swallows has been organised on a large scale 

 along the seaboard of France. The poor creatures alight on wires 

 (prepared for the purpose), tired out after long flights to or from Italy and 

 the East, and are killed in thousands by means of electric currents. This 

 modern massacre of the innocents has been ordained in the interest of 

 fashion, and the slaughtered birds are sold for the decoration of ladies' (?) 

 hats and bonnets in London, Paris, and New York." 



Thus we see, if ladies' whims and love of gain in man had 

 their sway, and could convert all the swallows into gold, we 

 would have plagues of flies as well as plagues of mice. How 

 very different from Burns' feeling to the swallow, as seen in his 

 lines to " Peggy" : — 



" But, Peggy dear, the evening's clear, 



Thick flies the skimming sivaUow; 

 The sky is blue, the fields in view, 



All fading green and yellow; 

 Come, let us stray our gladsome way, 



And view the charms of Nature — 

 The rustling corn, the fruited thorn, 



And every happy creature." 



The young birds are easily known by the shortness of their 

 lateral tail feathers or rudder. Yet they find their way across 



