ORDER PASSERES. 101 



depart on the entrance of the rainy monsoon, most assuredly 

 it is not the want of nutriment which causes them to migrate, 

 for in this very same season other swallows arrive, which 

 remain there, and find wherewith to subsist. Among mi- 

 grating birds, we must also make a difference between those 

 that only traverse a country, and those which make a regular 

 sojourn of many months. 



" It would appear," says M. Levaillant, in conclusion, 

 " that the birds of every country may be divided into three 

 distinct Classes : the birds proper and pecvdiar to the country, 

 that is, those which nestle there ; the stationary birds, which 

 sojourn there without reproducing ; and, finally, the birds of 

 passage, which only traverse the country without either stop- 

 ping or leaving any offspring. But before such a division 

 can be established with any thing like accuracy, how much 

 labour, observation, and patience, will be necessary ! One 

 thing we may venture to predict, that the work will never 

 be performed by the ornithologists of the closet." 



The Cape Swallow {Rousseline^ of Levaillant) passes the 

 entire summer at the Cape. It is also the species found most 

 frequently and abundantly over the entire southern point of 

 Africa. It is met with every where, but more particularly 

 in inhabited places. These birds are so familiar that they 

 enter houses, and especially those belonging to the colonists 

 of the interior, for in the town their visits are not much 

 encouraged, an account of the dirt they occasion in apart- 

 ments. The peasants, who are less scrupulous on this point, 

 suffer them not only to establish themselves very quietly in 

 their dirty halls, which bid defiance to contamination, but 

 also behold them nestle with great pleasure in their chambers, 

 because they regard them as birds of good omen. The nest 

 of these birds, when constructed in a chamber, is attached to 

 the ceiling against a beam, and built with clay, mixed up 

 like those of our European swallows. But its form is alto- 

 jrcihcr diflerent. It is a hollow ball, to wliich a \o\m 



