The Swallow and the Sparrow 



the usual structure found inside our houses. 

 The material was plastic mud, as always; 

 the protection, a covering of the same mud; 

 and that was all. The dangers of the site 

 had suggested no improvement to the archi- 

 tect; the edifice was no different from those 

 built against the wall of a chimney. One 

 point is established, therefore: in my dis- 

 trict, the Pelopaeus nidifies sometimes, but 

 very rarely, in stone-heaps and under 

 natural flagstones which do not touch the 

 ground. Thus must she have nidified be- 

 fore becoming the inmate of our dwellings 

 and our fireplaces. 



A second point is open to discussion. 

 The three nests found under the stones are 

 in a piteous state. Soaked with damp, they 

 possess hardly more consistency than the 

 muddy puddle utilized for their construc- 

 tion. They are softened to such a degree 

 that they can no longer be handled. The 

 cells are ripped open; the cocoons, easily 

 recognizable by their colour and their 

 transparency, which is that of an onion-skin, 

 are in pieces, without any vestige of the 

 larvae which I ought to find at the time of 

 my discovery, that is in winter. And yet 

 the three hovels are not old nests ruined 

 by the weather after the emergence of the 

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