74 THE RIVER-SIDE NATURALIST. 



favourite birds, and a rival of the nightingale, for he cheers 

 my sense of hearing ; he is the glad prophet of the year, 

 the harbinger of the best season ; he lives the life of enjoy- 

 ment amongst the loveliest forms of nature ; winter is un- 

 known to him, and he leaves the green meadows of England 

 in autumn for the myrtle and orange-groves of Italy, and 

 for the palms of Africa. He has always objects of pursuit, 

 and his success is sure ; even the beings selected for his 

 prey are poetical, beautiful, and transient. The friend of 

 man, and, with the stork and ibis, may be regarded as 

 a sacred bird." 



There is an old Roman legend that swallows are the 

 embodied spirits of dead children revisiting their homes. 

 What a pleasant idea, and how it inclines us to love the 

 bird still more ! Ovid, in his " Metamorphoses," tells a 

 terrible story of the sorrows of Procne, and of her being 

 transformed into a swallow. The swallow was supposed 

 to use the wild celandine plant to give sight to their young ; 

 hence the name of the bird in Greek is ^eAfcW, and the 

 common name, swallow-herb for the celandine. 



Willoughby, in his " Ornithology," gives a most wonder- 

 ful account of the use of this bird for medicinal purposes, 

 so that we may look upon it as a kind of " heal all." He 

 quotes from Schroeder: 



1. " Swallows entire are a specific remedy for the falling 

 sickness, dimness of sight, bleared eyes ; for this their 

 ashes are to be mixed with honey and applied as an oint- 

 ment. They cure also the squinancy and inflammation of 

 the uvula (pin of the mouth), being eaten, and their ashes 

 taken inwardly. 



2. "A swallow's head is good for the falling sickness, 

 and to strengthen the memory. Some eat it against the 

 quartan ague. 



3. " Some will have the blood to be specific for the eyes, 

 and they prefer that which is drawn from under the left 

 wing. 



4. " There is a stone found sometimes, though seldom, 

 in the stomach of some of the young swallows called cheli- 

 donius, of the bigness of a lentil or pea. This, bound to the 



