162 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



much more in favour of hiding than migration, since it is 

 much more probable that a bird should retire to its hyber- 

 naculum just at hand, than return for a week or two to 

 warmer latitudes. 



The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no 

 means builds altogether in chimneys, but often within 

 barns and outhouses against the rafters ; and so she did in 

 Virgil's time — 



. . . "Ant^ 

 Garrula quh^m tiguis nidos suspendat hirundo." 



In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called Ladu swala, 

 the barn swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe 

 there are no chimneys to houses, except they are English- 

 built : in these countries she constructs her nest in porches, 

 and gateways, and galleries, and open halls. 



Here and there a bird may affect some odd, peculiar 

 place, as we have known a swallow build down the shaft of 

 an old well, through which chalk had been formerly drawn 

 up for the purpose of manure ; but in general with us this 

 hirundo breeds in chimneys, and loves to haunt those 

 stacks where there is a constant fire, no doubt for the sake 

 of warmth. Not that it can subsist in the immediate 

 shaft where there is a fire, but prefers one adjoining to that 

 of the kitchen, and disregards the perpetual smoke of that 

 funnel, as I have often observed with some degree of 

 wonder. 



Five or six or more feet down the chimney does this little 

 bird begin to form her nest about the middle of May, which 

 consists, like that of the house-martin, of a crust or shell 

 composed of dirt or mud, mixed with short pieces of straw 

 to render it tough and permanent ; with this difference, that 

 whereas the shell of the martin is nearly hemispheric, that 



