290 HISTORY OF 



swallow leaves hers quite open. But our European nests are 

 nothing to be compared with those the swallow builds on the 

 coasts of China and Coromandel ; the description of which I 

 will give in the plain honest phrase of Willoughby. " On the 



that these birds can, upon occasion, change tlie usual arrangemeut of their 

 architecture. 



Another pair, mentioned by Bingley, built for two successive seasons on 

 the handles of a pair of garden-shears, which had been stuck np against the 

 boards in an outhouse. A still more singular instance is recorded of another 

 pair, «'hich built their nest on the wings and body of a dead owl, hung up 

 on the rafter of a baini, and so loose as to be moved by every gust of wind. 

 Tliis owl, with the nest on its wings, aud the eggs in the nest, was brought 

 as a curiosity to the museum of ^ir Ashton Lever, who, struck with the od- 

 dity of the thing, desired a large shell to be fixed up where the owl had 

 hung ; and the following season a nest, as had been anticipated, was built 

 there, and was transmitted to the Leverian museum as a companion to the 

 owl. 



The chimney.swallow differs from the window-swallow, according to 

 Montbeillard, in not occupying the same nest more than one season, btuld. 

 ing annually a new nest, and, if the spot admits it, fixing it above that oc- 

 cupied the preceding year. " I have found them," says he, " in the shaft of a 

 chimney, thus ranged in tiers, aud have counted four, one above another, and 

 all of equal size, plastered with mud mixed with straw and hair. There were 

 some of two different sizes and shapes, — the largest resembled a shallow half- 

 cylinder, open above, a foot in height, and attached to the sides of the cliim- 

 ney ; the smallest were stuck in the corners of the chimney, forming only a 

 fourth of a cylinder, or almost an inverted cone. '1 he first nest, which was the 

 lowest, had the same texture at the bottom as at the sides ; but the two 

 upper tiers were separated from the lower by their lining only, which con- 

 sisted of straw, dry herbs, and feathers. Of the small nests, built in the 

 comers, I could find only two in tiers, and I inferred that they were the 

 property of young pairs, as they were not so compactly built as the larger 

 ones. 



In habits, instincts, appearance, and migration, the Sirifl resembles tlie 

 Swallow. The common Swift is seldom seen in the northern parts of 

 England before the end of May, or the beginning of June ; iu the south it 

 arrives a week or two earlier. It leaves us again for warmer climates in 

 August, a month or six weeks previous to the departiu-e of the swalhuvs. 

 In this coimtry it haunts cathedrals, towers, churches, and other buildings 

 not constantly inhabited, in the holes, and under the eaves of which it finds 

 a safe retreat, and proper situation to build in. — Tlie nest is formed of straxv 

 and other suitable materials, which it collects with great dexterity in its 

 flight. It never alights on the ground, as it is unable to rise from a flat 

 surface. 



The GoiiUuckers are so named from a most absurd notion, that they suck 

 the mammae of goats, a notion wliicli may perhaps have originated in the 

 enormous depth and aperture of the gape. This vulgarism is by no means 

 modern, for it appears, by the Greek appellative, to have existed in the time 

 of Aristotle, though it seems probable, that the first application of the in me 



