60 SWALLOW NESTS. 



not supposed to be possessed of any very superior 

 medical qualities, and are chiefly sold as articles of 

 luxury, and ornaments for the tables of the rich 

 Chinese. Their mode of using them is, to put them, 

 after being well soaked and cleaned, along with a 

 fat capon or duck, into an earthen pot closely 

 covered, and suffered to boil over a slow fire for 

 twenty -four hours* 



Swallows are generally hailed as welcome guests, 

 and allowed to fix their plastered dwellings, without 

 molestation, under th$ eaves or corners of window- 

 sills ; but, when very numerous, they are apt to 

 occasion a good deal of dirt, and when once esta- 

 blished, it is by no means easy to drive them away. 

 This, however, may be effected by rubbing the 

 corners of the windows with soft-soap early in the 

 Spring. This was practised with success, in a house, 

 the windows of which used to be quite darkened by 

 the dirt, &c., occasioned by a colony of nests. The 

 Swallows, on their arrival, began to build as usual; 

 but as fast as they attempted to attach their mate- 

 rials to the stone, they slipped off. For some days, 

 they renewed their attempts, but then gave the 

 matter up; and what was very remarkable, although 

 the soaping was never renewed, not a single Swallow 

 ever afterwards attempted to build on the windows, 

 not even on those which had not been soaped, though 

 several built in the adjacent out-houses and imme- 

 diate neighbourhood. 



But we fear we are suggesting a needless remedy 

 for an inconvenience not likely to occur; for, within 

 the last few years, particularly since 1809, these 

 pretty social Summer visiters, like our Starlings, 



