of Selborne 147 



their omi food ; therefore they play about near the place 

 where the dams are hawking for flies ; and when a mouth- 

 ful is collected, at a certain signal given, the dam and the 

 nestling advance, rising towards each other, and meeting 

 at an angle ; the young one all the while uttering such a 

 little quick note of gratitude and complacency, that a 

 person must have paid very little regard to the wonders of 

 nature that has not often remarked this feat. 



The dam betakes herself immediately to the business 

 of a second brood as soon as she is disengaged from her 

 first ; which at once associates with the first broods of 

 house-martins ; and with them congregates, clustering 

 on sunny roofs, towers, and trees. This hirundo brings 

 out her second brood towards the middle and end of 

 August. 



All the summer long is the swallow a most instructive 

 pattern of unwearied industry and affection ; for, from 

 morning to night, while there is a family to be sup- 

 ported, she spends the whole day in skimming close to 

 the ground, and exerting the most sudden turns and 

 quick evolutions. Avenues, and long walks under hedges, 

 and pasture-fields, and mown meadows where cattle 

 graze, are her delight, especially if there are trees inter- 

 spersed ; because in such spots insects most abound. 

 When a fly is taken a smart snap from her bill is heard, 

 resembling the noise at the shutting of a watch-case ; but 

 the motion of the mandibles are too quick for the eye. 



The swallow, probably the male bird, is the excubitor 

 to house- martins, and other little birds, announcing the 

 approach of birds of prey. For as soon as an hawk ap- 

 pears, with a shrill alarming note he calls all the swallows 

 and martins about him ; who pursue in a body, and buffet 

 and strike their enemy till they have driven him from the 

 village, darting down from above on his back, and rising 

 in a perpendicular line in perfect security. This bird also 

 will sound the alarm, and strike at cats when they climb 

 on the roofs of houses, or otherwise approach the nests. 

 Each species <:>{ hirundo drinks as it flics along, sipping 

 the surface of the water ; but the swallow alone, in 

 general, washes on the wing, by dropping into a pool 



