274 On the Swallow. 
water ? Some people assert that they hibernate at the bottom of 
lakes and rivers. It must be so: see, there is one just risen.’ 
To asuperficial observer they certainly had all the appearance 
of just emerging from the bosom of the lake. But looking atten- 
tively, we perceived them regularly descending in a slanting direc- 
tion, and take something from the surface of the water, in which 
exercise they always, in skimming, struck the water with their 
breast, dashing a spray round them, which looked very much 
like to shaking the water from their wings. This I have since 
observed a thousand times, in the swallow skimming the river 
or mill-dam, catching the water-flies ; but which, to persons not 
interesting themselves in the result, and at some little distance 
from the scene of action, is certainly very delusive, and without 
a close inspection and very attentive observation, apt to leave 
that impression of their emerging from the water upon the mind. 
The weather was still cold, and not a fly abroad in the air to sup- 
port them: no doubt remained with us of their thus gathering 
food; an idea in which we were soon strengthened, by stepping 
down to the edge of the lake, aud seeing the surface of the water 
all along the shore, and as far as the eye could reach, swarming 
with innumerable insects in appearance like gross gun-powder, 
and the water itself filled with the maggot of a water-fly, upon 
which there can be no doubt whatever the birds were feeding.— 
Some similar occurrences must have given birth to the delusion 
of submerging; and the gentleman who so confidently asserts 
that he saw them with his own eyes coming up from ‘the lake 
and shake the water from their wings, must have been deceived 
with his eyes open by a corresponding event. 
I am perfectly satisfied, from a variety of circumstances, that 
the same swallows return to the same spot from whence they 
emigrate from year to year: in this I was particularly confirmed 
on the morning of their arrival this season, by a pair of chimney 
swallows that had nestled for years before i in a cellar above the 
coal-shed, to which they had access by an opening in the roof 
that had been closed after their departure to keep out the winter 
drift. ‘The first things I saw upon looking towards the boiling- 
house that morning, were these swallows flying about the cellar, 
searching with great anxiety every tile in the roof for an entry 
to their old dwelling. I no sooner got down than an opening was 
made, through which they immediately passed, while i had not 
retired a yard from the spot, and seemed quite overjoyed to find 
their former incubat entire. When I entered the boiling-house 
all was noise and merriment ; twelve nests they had occupied the 
preceding year were all entire, uninjured, and again in possession 
of the chimney swallows, their former occupants. 
I cannot suppose that stranger swallows could with equal fa- 
cility 
