80 THE OPEN AIR. 



take heart ; the few and scanty plants that had 

 braved the earlier cold are succeeded by a constantly 

 enlarging list, till the banks and lanes are full of 

 them. The chimney- swallow is usually the fore- 

 runner of the three house-swallows ; and perhaps no 

 fact in natural history has been so much studied as 

 the migration of these tender birds. The commonest 

 things are always the most interesting. In summer 

 there is no bird so common everywhere as the 

 swallow, and for that reason, many overlook it, though 

 they rush to see a " white " elephant. But the 

 deepest thinkers have spent hours and hours in con- 

 sidering the problem of the swallow its migrations, 

 its flight, its habits ; great poets have loved it ; great 

 artists and art-writers have curiously studied it. The 

 idea that it is necessary to seek the wilderness or 

 the thickest woods for nature is a total mistake ; 

 nature is at home, on the roof, close to every one. 

 Eave-swallows, or house-martins (easily distinguished 

 by the white bar across the tail), build sometimes in 

 the shelter of the porches of old houses. 



As you go in or out, the swallows visiting or 

 leaving their nests fly so closely as almost to brush 

 the face. Swallow means porch-bird, and for centuries 

 and centuries their nests have been placed in the 

 closest proximity to man. They might be called 

 man's birds, so attached are they to the human race. 

 I think the greatest ornament a house can have is the 

 nest of an eave-swallow under the eaves far superior 

 to the most elaborate carving, colouring, or arrange- 

 ment the architect can devise. There is no ornament 

 like the swallow's nest; the home of a messenger 



