SWALLOWS. 153 



such a little quick note of gratitude and complacency, that a 

 person must have paid very little regard to the wonders of 

 Nature that has not often remarked this feat. 



The dam betakes herself immediately to the business of a 

 second brood, as soon as she is disengaged from her first ; 

 which at once associates with the first broods of house-martens, 

 and with them congregates, clustering on sunny roofs, towers* 

 and trees. This hirundo brings out her second brood towards 

 the middle and end of August. 



All the summer long is the swallow a most instructive 

 pattern of unwearied industry and affection ; for, from morning 

 to night, while there is a family to be supported, she spends 

 the whole day in skimming close to the ground, and exerting 

 the most sudden turns and quick evolutions. Avenues, and 

 long walks, under hedges, and pasture fields, and mown meadows 

 where cattle graze, are her delight, especially if there are trees 

 interspersed ; because in such spots insects most abound. 

 When a fly is taken, a smart snap from her bill is heard, 

 resembling the noise at the shutting of a watch case ; but the 

 motion of the mandibles is too quick for the eye. 



The swallow, probably the male bird, is the excubitor to 

 house-martens, and other little birds, announcing the approach 

 of birds of prey. For as soon as a hawk appears, with a shrill 

 alarming note, he calls all the swallows and martens about 

 him ; who pursue in a body, and buffet and strike their enemy, 

 till they have driven him from the village, darting down from 

 above on his back, and rising in a perpendicular line in perfect 

 security. This bird also will sound the alarm, and strike at 

 cats when they climb on the roofs of houses, or otherwise 

 approach the nests.* Each species of hirundo drinks as it 



* The swallow is well known to be a very intrepid bird, and will attack 

 animals of a size superior to itself, and which larger birds would not dare 

 to face. While a gentleman was walking through a retired village lane, 

 near Lynn Regis, in 1830, a stoat, mustela erminea, issued from the 

 hedge a few paces before him, on the footpath. A swallow, flying over 

 the place, immediately discovered the animal, fearlessly pounced upon 

 him, and forced him to retire to his hiding-place. In a minute after- 

 wards, however, the stoat again ventured out, when the swallow, having 

 taken another round in the air, again obliged him to retreat. This was 

 repeated four several times, after which the stoat disappeared, and was 

 not again seen. 



A swallow has been seen to attack a cat, in the same manner as above 

 described. A writer in London's Magazine says, " Swallows were 

 and ^are allowed to build in out-houses belonging to my father ; the 

 house cat would often bask in the sun, beside the out-houses, when the 

 swallows testified their detestation of her by flying over her head in a 



