On the Swailow. 277 
and a collection of parent swallows had gathered.—The state of 
the nest and the young was taken under review, and arrange- 
~ ments immediately gone into for the protection and support of 
the helpless orphans: their support was brought them before 
leaving them for the night: and next day the sympathetic and 
benevolent office of feeding them was carried on with so much 
parental care, that they were as regularly fed, and as soon fledged 
and on the wing, as any nest about the field. I mention this lat- 
ter part as a proof that they lacked ncthing in common with the 
young of other nests; as I have for years uniformly found, that 
good or bad weather, about nursing time, will make a difference 
of a week, and sometimes more, in the flight of the young, which 
must be in proportion to the quantum of food delivered into the 
nest, and this must be greater in good weather when the flies are 
more numerous. During bad weather, when few flies are on the 
wing, the swallows must feed very sparingly. Their powers of di- 
gestion during the season of plenty must he very rapid. In some 
warm days when the flies were numerous, I have cleaned the 
stones under different nests to ascertain the number of drops that 
fell from the young, and found four and sometimes five drops from 
each bird in the course of an hour; in bad weather sometimes 
only one, two, or three from each, just in proportion to the quan- 
tity of flies given, and the state of the atmosphere for catching 
them. Only a few days had elapsed, when the joint assistance 
and labour of the whole colony was again put in requisition. A 
nest built in the west corner of a back room window facing the 
north was so much softened by rain beating in that direction, from 
the severity of a violeut storm from the north-east, as to render 
it unfit to support the weight of a superincumbent load of five 
well grown young swallows: during the storm thé nest fell into 
the corner below, leaving the young brood expesed to all the in- 
clemency of. the blast. To save the poor things from untimely 
death, a covering was thrown over them till the severity of the 
storm abated. This had no sooner subsided than the sages as- 
sembled, fluttering round the window and hovering over the tem- 
porary covering of the fallen nest, which was removed as soon as 
this careful anxiety was discovered, and the utmost joy evinced 
by the group on finding the young ones alive and unhurt. After 
feeding them, the members of this assembled community arranged 
themselves into working order; each division, taking its appro- 
priate station, fell to instant labour, and before nightfall had 
jointly completed an arched canopy over the young, and securely 
covered them against a succeeding blast. Calculating the time 
occupied by the assembly to perform this piece of architecture, 
it appeared evident the young must have perished from hunger 
or cold before any single pair could have executed half the job. 
S3 Aware 
