SWALLOWS AND SWIFTS IN CAPTIVITY. 373 



It appears that about the latter end of August, 1784, Mr. 

 Pearson obtained five or six Swallows in a fowling-net at night. 

 He put them at first separately into small cages, and fed them on 

 " Nightingale's food." After about ten days of hand-feeding, they 

 consented to take food for themselves, and were then put all 

 together into a deep cage, four feet long, with gravel at the 

 bottom; a broad shallow pan with water was placed in it, in 

 which they sometimes washed. All went well for some little time ; 

 but one day, as the cold weather approached, they were observed 

 to plunge repeatedly and excitedly into their bath, and, very 

 shortly after, all five became torpid, and three died; the 

 remaining two revived, and lived until Christmas, when they also 

 unfortunately became afflicted with inflamed feet and succumbed. 



In the following year, however (1785), Mr. Pearson repeated 

 the experiment with four birds, this time covering the perches 

 with flannel, and met with complete success ! The Swallows 

 thrived, sang their pleasant chattering song all through the winter 

 months, moulted soon after Christmas, lived for three or four 

 years, and only perished from neglect during the illness of 

 their owner. 



I only came across the above passage late in the year 1886 — 

 so late that I doubted whether I could obtain any Swallows to 

 make the attempt with. I was at that time in the Isle of Man, 

 and the Swallows had almost all left for warmer climes; more- 

 over, I wanted young Swallows. 



However, chance favoured the idea. At six o'clock one 

 evening (it was the 6th of September) — a dark, cloudy, stormy 

 evening, which foretold a storm to come — my cousin and myself 

 anchored our boat off the Banner Rock, a little south of St. Anne's 

 Head, on the Manx coast, and sprang on to a reef, exposed by a 

 dead low spring-tide, and thence scrambled up to the base of the 

 clifl', in order to explore a cave which was said to exist about 

 there, and from which a subterranean passage was said to lead to 

 Castle Eushen. The back of the cave was blocked with masonry ; 

 so ran the legend. Well, we found a cave that answered to the 

 description, crawled some way in on hands and knees in pitchy 

 darkness (for we had lost candle and matches), and, far in, we 

 found the masonry ; but, what is more, out flew a Swallow from 

 above our heads. We soon spotted the nest, which contained 

 four young birds, fully fledged, and quite able to fly. 



