206 THE WHITE-RUMPED (OR WINDOW) SWALLOW. 



So, unharmed and unafraid, 



Sat the swallow still and brooded, 

 Till the constant cannonade 

 Through the walls a breach had made, 

 And the siege was thus concluded. 



Then the army, elsewhere bent, 



Struck its tents as if disbanding, 

 Only not the Emperor's tent, 

 For he ordered, ere he went, 



Very curtly, ' Leave it standing f 



So it stood there all alone, 



Loosely flapping, torn and tattered, 



Till the brood was fledged and flown, 



Singing o'er those walls of stone 

 Which the cannon-shot had shattered." 



I know an instance where a house-martin's nest with young 

 ones fell from the window corner down to the street. Some of 

 the young ones were killed, the others put in a cage, and hung 

 out of the window. The old birds went into the cage every 

 morning and fed them for a fortnight until they were able to 

 fly, and then left it along with them. On going through Abbey 

 Park, August 22nd, 1892, I saw they had already begun to 

 congregate before leaving us in the end of September, for they 

 were settling in dozens on the high, dead branches of a very 

 large and old saugh or willow tree near the burn. There were 

 no swifts amongst them, for, with the exception of three or four 

 which I saw at the old Castle, they had already all slipped 

 quietly and unobservedly away. But I saw several starlings 

 — taking their place, as it were — flying amongst the swallows, 

 also hawking for flies — the quick flutter and sailing with out- 

 spread wings up and down after the flies leaving no room for 

 doubt. It was very sultry — 80 deg. in the shade — a wave of 

 heat having passed over Europe. In France it was 96 deg. in 

 the shade. The swallows were at least 2,000 feet up, and 

 seemed like butterflies. 



It is strange that swifts, which seem to live the same as 

 swallows, should leave us in fine weather, in the middle of 

 August, while the swallows continue till the first of October ; 

 and is the more strange when we know of instances of some 

 remaining till September through an accident to their eggs or 

 young, causing a second brood. 



