PERCHING BIRDS. 161 



it seeks our dwellings, as the sanctuary where its tender 

 young will be safe ; and this, combined with its gentle, 

 pleasing manners, justly makes it a general favourite. 

 Wherever the swallow is found it seems to possess the 

 same instinctive confidence in man, and the same prefe- 

 rence for buildings. 



In this country a chimney is most generally chosen 

 by the swallow wherein to erect its nest ; but in this 

 selection I have never observed it show any particular 

 preference for a shaft in a stack of chimneys more than 

 for an isolated one. I fancy the only condition which 

 seems greatly to influence it in this respect is, that it 

 shall not be one which is in constant use. In my father's 

 house there was an isolated chimney, which certainly 

 was not used more than once or twice a year, and for at 

 least thirty years I never knew this without a nest. It 

 was a short, straight shaft, up which when a boy I 

 have often looked with longing eyes at the prize above ; 

 and once or twice I remember an unfortunate young one 

 tumbling down into the empty fireplace when essaying to 

 leave the nest on its first journey. There was a window 

 at a short distance, nearly on a level with the chimney- 

 top, and I have spent hours, at various times, in watch- 

 ing the busy labours of the parent birds in constructing 

 and repairing their nest. In some years the winter rain 

 and snow would be so heavy as to demolish the frail 

 structure, when a new one had to be built ; in others it 

 merely required a little patching, or a new lining of 

 feathers, to make it habitable ; but, with very few ex- 

 ceptions, the same angle of the chimney was always 

 selected for the new nest, and it never varied more than 

 a few inches in its distance from the top. 



Though the swallow does not rank high as a songster, 



M 



