THE SWALLOW S BROOD 183 



changed from Maty to Martha. He sang no more lyric 

 songs, for the reason that he threw himself into the work 

 of feeding the family ; but he was still much the more 

 vocal of the two ; and when he brought food, always 

 before giving it, sounded a sweet and gentle note or two, 

 the relic of the love-song subdued to solicitous father 

 hood. Nearly always when he flew away he gave a loud 

 halloo, as if to call the other caterer. The two worked in 

 a pretty unison, and when they arrived one on the heels 

 of the other, the second waited, though impatiently, a 

 few inches away. They differed in their technique. The 

 mother seemed to give more mouthfuls, bobbing her 

 head deep into the nest a number of times, while she bent 

 her long tail under the nest to maintain a proper balance. 

 And when she had fed, she generally, in the first few days 

 at any rate, brooded the young for a few minutes, slipping 

 into the nest with a neat smoothness. 



We watched at all hours, but there was much that we 

 missed. We found the half eggshells lying under the 

 nest, but missed the careful act of expulsion, though we 

 often saw the cleaning process. How dull a thing the 

 egg of the martin and swallow is, when empty, and how 

 beautiful and vivid when the almost visible yolk is in it ! 

 Of all eggs it is the most transparent, very lovely in the 

 nest, but so dull and common in a cabinet, that you have 

 some ado to recognise its identity. It partakes of the 

 vividness that belongs to every part of the swallow ? 

 being. They are of the air aerial. Even their bones, so 

 the anatomists tell us, are imbued with its lightness. 



7- 



The place is one of those which, by virtue of their own 

 peculiar quiet, engender a close intimacy among all the 



