26 



LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



saw him about to settle on one of the children's 

 hands, extended with the food. He would very 

 often alight on the children, uncalled, when they 

 were walking several fields distant from home. 



What a charming sketch of innocence and be- 

 nevolence, heightened by the anxiety of the pet's 

 relations to win him away from beings whom they 

 must have looked upon as so many young ogres ! 

 The poor flies, it is true, darken the picture a 

 little ; but to proceed with the narrative : 



Our little inmate was never made a prisoner by 

 being put into a cage, but always ranged about the 

 room at large wherever the children were, and 

 they never went out of doors without taking him 

 with them. Sometimes he would sit on their 

 hands or heads and catch flies for himself, which he 

 soon did with great dexterity. At length, finding 

 it take up too much of their time to supply him 

 with food enough to satisfy his appetite, (for I 

 have no doubt he ate from seven hundred to a 

 thousand flies a-day,) they used to turn him out of 

 me house, shutting the window to prevent his re- 

 turn for two or three hours together, in hopes he 

 would learn to cater for himself, which he soon 

 did ; but still was no less tame, always answering 

 their call, and coming in at the window to them 

 (of his own accord) frequently every day, and al- 

 ways roosting in their room, which he has regular- 

 ly done from the first till within a week or ten days 

 past. -He constantly roosted on one of the chil- 

 dren's heads till their bed-time ; nor was he 

 disturbed by the child moving about, or even 

 walking, but would remain perfectly quiet with 

 his head under his wing, till he was put away for 

 the night in some warm corner, for he liked much 

 warmth. 



The kind and considerate attempt to alienate 

 the attached bird from its little friends had its 

 effect. 



It is now four days (writes worthy Mr. Tre- 

 velyan, in conclusion) since he came in to roost in 

 the house, and though he did not then show any 

 symptoms of shyness, yet he is evidently becoming 

 less tame, as the whistle will not now bring him to 

 the hand ; nor does he visit us as formerly, but he 

 always acknowledges it when within hearing by a 

 chirp, and by flying near. Nothing could exceed 

 his lameness for about six weeks ; and I have no 

 doubt it would have continued the same had we not 

 left him to himself as much as we could, fearing he 

 would be so perfectly domesticated that he would 

 be left behind at the time of migration, and of 

 course be starved in the winter from cold and hun- 

 ger. 



And so ends this agreeable story : not, how- 

 ever, that it was " of course" that the confiding 

 bird would be starved if it remained ; for the Rev. 

 W. F. Cornish, of Totness, kept two tame swal- 

 lows, one for a year and a half, and the other for 

 two years, as he informed Mr. Yarrell. 



Wilson has proved that the American barn- 

 swallow may be easily tamed, and he observes 

 that they, too, soon become exceedingly gentle and 

 familiar. He frequently kept them in his room 

 for several days at a time, when they employed 

 themselves in catching flies, picking them from his 

 clothes and hair, and calling out occasionally as 



they observed some of their old companions pass- 

 ing the windows. 



But, after all, it is very questionable kindness 

 to make a pet of a creature so essentially volatile. 

 Look at the bird. Observe its tiny legs and feet. 

 See how the whole structure is fitted for an aerial 

 existence. Look at the prodigal development of 

 wing, and the powerful muscles destined to work 

 the alar machinery, enabling the bird to sustain 

 itself for hours in the air, and there execute such 

 rapid and changing turns and evolutions as the 

 desultory movements of its insect prey require, and 

 with a celerity that the eye can hardly follow. 

 Virgil found no better simile for the velocity and 

 dexterity exhibited by Juturna, when driving her 

 brother's chariot to save him from falling into the 

 hands of ^Eneas ; nor Ariosto for the rapidity of 

 the ship wherein Orlando Furioso desired to 

 cleave the waters. 



The multitudes of insects destroyed by a pair 

 of swallows in the breeding season may be im- 

 agined from the number of flies that went to make 

 up the daily rations of Mr. Trevelyan's tame bird. 

 Theocritus, through whose verse Nature breathes, 

 had evidently observed the multitudinous visits 

 and departures from the nest for the purpose of 

 feeding the young, and alludes to them with his 

 wonted felicity in his fourteenth idyl. Poetical 

 fable, too, was busy with the bird, and the lament- 

 able story of the daughters of Pandion was cele- 

 brated, both in prose and poetry. 



Pendebant peniiis, quarum petit altera silvas 

 Allera tecta subit.* 



The concluding frightful scene, which reminds 

 one of the horrible revenge of Titus Andronicus, 

 with the additional coup de theatre of Philomela 

 throwing the head of Itylus on the table at the 

 conclusion of the revolting repast, and the subse- 

 quent change of Tereus into a hoopoe, Itylus into 

 a pheasant, Philomela into a nightingale, and her 

 sister into a swallow 



Manibus Procne pectus signata cruentis,t 

 is perhaps as striking a chapter of metamor- 

 phoses as Greek or Roman ever invented. Mos- 

 chus makes the two plaintive sisters prominent in 

 their lamentations, when 



All the birds in the air fell to sighing and sobbing, 



on the death of Bion.J Nor are some of the 

 stories told of the bird, evidently in good faith, 

 unamusing : 



In the mouth of Nilus, near Heraclea, in ^Egypt, 

 there is a mighty banke or causey raised only of a 

 continuall ranke and course of swallows' nests, 

 piled one upon and by another thicke, for the 

 length almost of half a quarter of a mile, which is 

 so firme and strong, that being opposed against the 

 inundations of Nilus, it is able to breake the force 



* Ovid, Metam. 6 



t Gecrrg. iv. Ovid also takes advantage of the plu- 

 mage to help the fable : 



Nee ad hue de pectore caedis 

 Excessere not<e, signataque sanguine pluma est. 



