NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 123 



years observation.* Not but now and then a straggler is seen much 

 earlier : and, in particular, when I was a boy I observed a swallow for a 

 whole day together on a sunny warm Shrove Tuesday ; which day could 

 not fall out later than the middle of March, and often happened early 

 in February. 



It is worth remarking that these birds are seen first about lakes and 

 mill-ponds ; and it is also very particular, that if these early visitors 

 happen to find frost and snow, as was the case of the two dreadful 

 springs of 1770 and 1771, they immediately withdraw for a time. 

 A circumstance this much more in favour of hiding than migration ; 

 since it is much more probable that a bird should retire to its hyberna- 

 culum 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 out-houses against 

 the rafters ; and so she did in Virgil's time : 



. . . . "Ante 



Garrula quam tignis 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 of the swallow is open at the top, and like half a deep dish : this 

 nest is lined with fine grasses, and feathers, which are often collected as 

 they float in the air. 



Wonderful is the address which this adroit bird shows all day long in 

 ascending and descending with security through so narrow a pass. 

 When hovering over the mouth of the funnel, the vibrations of her 

 wings acting on the confined air occasion a rumbling like thunder. It 

 is not improbable that the dam submits to this inconvenient situation 

 so low in the shaft, in order to secure her broods from rapacious birds, 



* Hirundo riparia, or bank-swallow, we have for many years observed to 

 precede the chimney-swallow by from seven to ten days. The breeding places 

 of the chimney swallow mentioned afterwards are all artificial, and of these the 

 rafters of outhouses are the most frequent. We are not acquainted with any 

 natural breeding-place of this species, it is most probably in caverns or cleft rocks. 



