LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



of that river when it swelleth, and is it selfe inex- 

 pugnable : a piece of work that no man is able to 

 turne his hand unto. In the same .^Egypt, neere 

 unto the towne Coptos, there is an island conse- 

 crated unto the goddesse Isis, which every yere 

 these swallows do rampier and fortifie, for feare 

 lest the same Nil us should eat the banks thereof, 

 and break over into it. In the beginning of the 

 spring, for three nights together, they bring to the 

 cape of that Island straw, chafFe, and such-like 

 stuffe, to strengthen the front thereof: and for the 

 time, they ply their businesse so hard, that for cer- 

 taine it is knowne, many of them have died with 

 taking such paines and moiling about this worke. 

 And verily every yeare they go as daily to this 

 taske againe, as the spring is sure to come about ; 

 and they faile not, no more than souldiers that by 

 virtue of their militarie oath and obligation go forth 

 to service and warfare.* 



Talk of the dykes of Holland after this ! 



Such services to the Egyptians, and to Isis in 

 particular, deserved a reward, and accordingly 

 Pliny and ^Elian will tell you that if their eyes 

 are taken out, new ones will come, and the bird 

 see as well as ever. This power of reproduction 

 undoubtedly exists in some of the reptiles, the 

 newt for instance ; but not in the higher warm- 

 blooded animals. Aristotle, however, declares, 

 that if the eyes of the swallow's nestlings are 

 pricked they will heal, and leave the young birds 

 with the power of vision. This is far from im- 

 possible, especially when the creature is very 

 young, for the humor may be restored under the 

 healed cornea but pray, gentle reader, do not try 

 the experiment and is probably the only author- 

 ity on which Pliny and ^Elian founded their radi- 

 cal assertion ; but a story always gains something 

 as it goes. " It is commonly said, that if a man 

 pluck the eies out of yong serpents -or yong swal- 

 lows, they wil have new again in their place, "f 



Then, again, when the Uatta, which seem to 

 have been as pernicious to the eggs and nestlings 

 of the swallow as they were to the bees,| persecuted 

 a swallow's nest, the parents, in the good old times, 

 dashed down to the first parsley bed they could find, 

 plucked some of the leaves, and dropped them into 

 their domicile, when away scuttled the intrusive 

 insects, and not a Uatta dared again to show his 

 antennae there as long as the crisp vegetable kept 

 guard. 



Now, really ! 



Inquire of ^Elian ; put him on your desk for 

 cross-examination, and see if you can shake his 

 evidence. 



But if the foregoing story of the parsley startles 

 you and how do you know that parsley will not 

 drive away Uatla ? pray listen to the numerous 

 ills which could be cured by means of these hygeian 

 creatures. Take the ashes of the young but of 

 the bank martin remember and you have " a 

 singular and soveraigne remedy for the deadly 

 squinancy." Eat them whole, and defy quartan 



* Holland's Pliny. 



t Holland's Pliny. Pliny's words are, " Serpentium 

 catuiis, et hirundinum pullis, si quis eruat, renasci 

 tradunt." 



t Georg. iv. Holland's Pliny. 



agues ; or, if you find it unpleasant to go the whole 

 bird, masticate their hearts with honey, or take 

 one drachm of their droppings in goats' or sheep's 

 milk before the quartan access. If your memory 

 should become a little the worse for wear, their 

 hearts, well mingled with cinnamon and ammomum, 

 will soon brighten you up again. You will find 

 water of swallows taken fasting, especially if it be 

 followed by a persevering diet on their flesh, with 

 their ashes mingled in the drink of the patient, 

 as infallible a remedy for epilepsy as any of the 

 nostrums of the present day. Weakness of sight, 

 ophthalmia, inflamed tonsils, are a few only of the 

 maladies which vanish before preparations of the 

 bird. The nests were held excellent good for 

 angina, and their blood for the gout. Then there 

 are certain small stones you will see them, 

 curious reader, figured in the Metallotheca Vaticana 

 Michaelis Mercati* found in the nestlings on 

 dissection, which cured liver-complaints if sus- 

 pended from the right arm, while those found in 

 the nest with the young rendered the wearer safe 

 from coughs. With regard to the toilet : he 

 who wishes to forestal the advance of age, which 

 most men eschew, may come out with a venerable 

 white head, and the d-devant jeune homme with a 

 jet black one, if he will only attend to the prescrip- 

 tions of Galen and Marcellus Kiranides, and mingle 

 the somewhat unsavory ingredients which they 

 recommend with different parts and secretions of 

 the swallow. If you find you don't succeed, you 

 must settle your accounts with the authors above 

 named Pliny, Celsus, Jacobus Olivarius, Hiero- 

 nymus Montuus, and other learned physicians, 

 now, as the old covenanters used to say, " gone, 

 to their place." 



But, seriously, whatever may be thought of the 

 copious materia medica which a swallow was sup- 

 posed to carry about with him in the olden time, 

 there can be little or no doubt that the lapilli or 

 little stones mentioned by Galen and others, were 

 actually found in the young birds, or in their nests ; 

 otherwise we should not have them figured in such 

 a work as the Metallotheca Vaticana. Their pres- 

 ence may be thus accounted for. As a help to 

 the digestion of their insect food, the old swallows 

 are said to give their young ones occasional doses 

 of sand and grit ; these cohering, may be formed 

 into the stones alluded to, and may be either cast 

 for Mr. Trevelyan observed that the swallow casts 

 after the fashion of an hawk or owl voided, or 

 found in the bodies of the young on dissection. 



This looks very like a dissertation on swallows^ 

 and any one who may take up these leaves may 

 feel inclined to " put them down" under the terror 

 of the many species that remain to be noticed ; but 

 no : interesting as is their history, but one other 

 form of swallow, if swallow it may be called, shall 

 here appear. 



The wood-swallowf the Be-wowen of the abo^ 



* Folio. Romae, MDCCXIX., p. 183. 



t Artamus sordidus. There are several species of 

 Artami, of which the bird under consideration appears to- 

 be the most extensively distributed. " No other species 

 of the Australian Arlami with which I am acquainted,"" 



