276 SWALLOW NESTS. 



soup, exposed in the night-time to the dew, and mixed 

 with sugar, are exceedingly cooling, and they are there- 

 fore much used in violent fevers ; they are also pre- 

 scribed, and with great success, in cases of hoarseness 

 and sore throats. They are, however, not supposed to 

 be possessed of any very superior medical qualities, and 

 are chiefly sold as articles of luxury, and ornaments for 

 the tables of the rich Chinese. Their mode of using 

 them is to put them, after being well soaked and cleaned, 

 along with a fat capon or duck, into an earthen pot 

 closely covered, and suffered to boil over a slow fire for 

 twenty-four hours. 



Swallows are generally hailed as welcome guests, and 

 allowed to fix their plastered dwellings, without molesta- 

 tion under the eaves or corners of window-sills ; but 

 when very numerous they are apt to occasion a good 

 deal of dirt, and when once established it is by no means 

 easy to drive them away. This, however, may be effected 

 by rubbing the corners of the windows with soft-soap 

 early in the Spring. This was practised with success in 

 a, house, the windows of which used to be quite darkened 

 by the dirt, &c., occasioned by a colony of nests. The 

 Swallows on their arrival began to build as usual ; but 

 as fast as they attempted to attach their materials to the 

 stone, they slipped off. For some days they renewed 

 their attempts, but then gave the matter up ; and what 

 was very remarkable, although the soaping was never 

 renewed, not a single Swallow ever afterwards attempted 

 to build on the windows, not even on those which had 

 not been soaped, though several built in the adjacent 

 out-houses and immediate neighbourhood. 



But we fear we are suggesting a needless remedy for 

 an inconvenience not likely to occur ; for within the last 

 few years, particularly since 1809, these pretty social 

 Summer visitors, like our Starlings, have been decreasing 

 in numbers in the most unaccountable manner not only 

 in England, but in almost every part of the Continent. 



The same church-steeple which has enabled us year 



