SPOKT OF BUTE. 119 



on the 5th of May, when we returned to our island 

 home, " Cuckoos and landrails are in full cry, 

 and chimney swallows are flying in considerable 

 numbers. Neither the window martin nor swift 

 has yet appeared. The gardener told me that he 

 first saw a swallow and heard the cuckoo on the 

 same day, the 30th of April." " Monday, 22d 

 May.* Window martins begun to build in the 

 eaves of the old tower. Saw, on the 18th, the first 

 and only pair of swifts I have noticed here this 

 season. Heard yesterday morning, at twenty-five 

 minutes past three A.M., two cuckoos, two land- 

 rails, a thrush, a sedge-warbler, and other birds, all 

 singing and calling at the same moment. The 

 landrail in the clover field, and the sedge-warbler 

 among the laurels, never cease their love-call dur- 

 ing the darkest night." " Friday, June 9th. The 

 pair of swifts attempting to take possession of the 

 same martin's nest they stormed last year." 



* A daughter of the late Lord President Hope gave me the 

 following curious and interesting particulars of a swallow's 

 nest which she had often heard told by her eminent father : 

 A pair had built their nest in a corner of the Lord President's 

 window. The fabric, however, always fell, until two older 

 swallows built it for them, and then left them in possession. 



