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MARTIN. 



HOUSE MABTIN. MARTIN SWALLOW. WINDOW MAETIN. 

 Hirundo urbica, PENNANT. MONTAGU. 



Hirundo A Swallow. Urbica urbs A city. 



'WOULD I a house for happiness erect, 

 Nature alone should be the architect.' 



So sajs the poet Cowley, and those who are wise will say 

 the same, and will build after her model, and on the foun- 

 dation she lays, so far as is consistent with the duties of 

 life. 



The pretty chirruping of the Martin over your window is 

 the pleasantest alarum to wake you up to enjoy the 'dewy 

 breath of incense-breathing morn/ and both the associations 

 of earliest recollection and the adventitious aids of poetry 

 combine to invest it with a never-failing charm. So again,' 

 at night, when the parent bird has returned to her brood, 

 for whom she has toiled all the day, and takes them under 

 the shelter of her wings; what more pleasant sound is there 

 in nature than the gentle twittering of the 'happy family' 

 the unmistakeable expression of the veriest and most complacent 

 satisfaction! 



The Martin is an attendant on civilization, and endeavours 

 to establish itself about the habitations of man. It cannot 

 be called a native of Africa, being born elsewhere; but it 

 visits us and other countries from thence. It frequents 

 Lapland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and even Siberia, 

 Iceland, and the Ferroe Isles. 



The trite remark of Cervantes 'una golondrina no pace 

 verano;* 'one Swallow does, not make a summer,' is as true 



