i:6 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



Shrove Tuesday; which day could not fall out later than the 

 middle of March, and often happened early in February. 



It is worth remarking that these birds are seen first about lakes 

 and mill-ponds ; and it is also very particular, that if these early 

 visitors happen to find frost and snow, as was the case of the two 

 dreadful springs of 1770 and 1771, they immediately withdraw 

 for a time. A circumstance this much more in favour of hiding 

 than migration ; since it is much more probable that a bird should 

 retire to its hybernaculum just at hand, than return for a week or 

 two to warmer latitudes. 



The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no means 

 builds altogether in chimneys, but often within barns and out- 

 houses against the rafters ; and so she did in Virgil's time : 



.... "Ante 



Garrula quam tignis nidos suspendat hirundo." 



In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called ladu swala, the 

 barn swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe there are 

 no chimneys to houses, except they are English-built : in these 

 countries she constructs her nest in porches, and gateways, and 

 galleries, and open halls. 



Here and there a bird may affect some odd, peculiar place ; 

 as we have known a swallow build down the shaft of an old well, 

 through which chalk had been formerly drawn up for the purpose 

 of manure : but in general with us this hirundo breeds in chim- 

 neys ; and loves to haunt those stacks where there is a constant 

 fire, no doubt for the sake of warmth. Not that it can subsist in 

 the immediate shaft where there is a fire; but prefers one ad- 

 joining to that of the kitchen, and disregards the perpetual smoke 

 of that funnel, as I have often observed with some degree of 

 wonder. 



Five or six or more feet down the chimney does this little bird 

 begin to form her nest about the middle of May, which consists, 

 like that of the house-martin, of a crust or shell composed of 

 dirt or mud, mixed with short pieces of straw to render it tough 

 and permanent ; with this difference, that whereas the shell of 

 the martin is nearly hemispheric, that of the swallow is open at 



