BRITISH BIRDS. 303 



d'Ornithologie ; and the result clearly proves, what 

 is in fact now admitted on all hands, that Swallows 

 do not in any material instance differ from other 

 birds in their nature and propensities; but that 

 they leave us when this country can no longer 

 furnish them with a supply of their proper and 

 natural food: but more especially when the great 

 object of their coming, that of propagating their 

 kind, has been fulfilled. 



Swallows soon become familiar* after they have 



* The following remarkable proof of this is extracted from a letter 

 to the author, from the Rev. Walter Trevelyan, dated Long Witton, 

 Northumberland, Sept. 10, 1800 : 



"About nine weeks ago, a Swallow fell down one of our chimnies, 

 nearly fledged, arid was able to fly in two or three days. The children 

 desired they might try to rear him (to which I agreed, fearing the 

 old ones would desert him), and as he was not the least shy, they 

 succeeded without any difficulty, for he opened his mouth for flies 

 as fast as they could supply them, and was regularly fed to a whistle. 

 In a few days (perhaps a week) they used to take him into the fields 

 with them, and as each child found a fly, and whistled, the little bird 

 flew for his prey, from one to another; at other times he would fly 

 round above them in the air, but always descended at the first call, 

 in spite of the constant endeavours of the wild Swallows to seduce 

 him away; for which purpose several of them at once would fly about 

 him in all directions, striving to drive him away when they saw him 

 about to settle on one of the children's hands, extended with the 

 food. He would very often alight on the children, uncalled, when 

 they were walking several fields distant from home. 



"Our little inmate was never made a prisoner, by being put into 

 a cage, but always ranged about the room at large, wherever the 

 children were, and they never went out of doors without taking him 

 with them. Sometimes he would sit on their hands or heads, and 

 catch flies for himself, which he soon did with great dexterity. At 

 length, finding it take up too much of their time to supply him with 

 food enough to satisfy his appetite (for I have no doubt he ate from 

 seven hundred to a thousand flies a-day), they used to turn him out 

 of the house, shutting the window to prevent his return, for two or 



