192 ROOKS. 



retired under ground about the 20th of November, 

 and came out again for one day on the 30th; 

 it lies now buried in a wet swampy border under a 

 wall facing to the south, and is enveloped at pre- 

 sent in mud and mire ! 



Here is a large rookery round this house, the 

 inhabitants of which seem to get their livelihood 

 very easily ; for they spend the greatest part of 

 the day on their nest-trees when the weather is 

 mild. These rooks retire every evening all the 

 winter from this rookery, where they only call by 

 the way, as they are going to roost in deep woods : 

 at the dawn of day they always revisit their nest- 

 trees, and are preceded a few minutes by a flight 

 of daws, that act, as it were, as their harbingers 



XVIII. 



THE house -swallow, or chimney- swallow, is, 

 undoubtedly, the first comer of all the British 

 hirundines ; and appears in general on or about 

 the 1 3th of April, as I have remarked from many 

 years' observation. Not but that now and then a 

 straggler is seen much earlier : and, in particular, 

 when I was a boy I observed a swallow for 

 a whole day together on a sunny warm Shrove 

 Tuesday ; which day could not fall out later than 

 the middle of March, and often happened early 

 in February. 



It is worth remarking, that these birds are seen 

 first about lakes and mill-ponds ; and it is also 

 very particular, that if these early visitors happen 

 to find frost and snow, as was the case of the two 

 dreadful springs of 1770 and 1771, they imme- 

 diately withdraw for a time ; a circumstance 

 this, much more in favour of hiding than migra- 



