XXI. 

 IimUNDO RUSTICA. (linn.) 



Chimney, or Baun Swallow . 



Of all the feathered tribes that enliven our summer months 

 by their visit, none is so interesting, so truly harmless, none 

 so useful as the Swallow ; were it not for its friendly aid in the 

 daily destruction of millions of insects, they would become an 

 insupportable nuisance, our atmosphere would be choked with 

 them, and, no doubt, many of the vegetable productions of 

 nature almost exterminated by them. Is it in return for all 

 these services that they are made the mark of the fowling- 

 piece, that hundreds of them are destroyed (as though a noi- 

 some thing) for amusement, and from mere wantoness ? Pity 

 it is that some superstitious dread is not, in imagination, at- 

 tached to the destruction of these delightful visitants of spring, 

 and that they are not regarded almost as sacred, like the 

 Ibis of old, the Stork of Holland, the Purple INIartin, of the 

 United States, or even as the Robin Redbreast, of our own 

 country. 



No emblem of the returning summer brings with it the 

 same delightful feelings and recollections as the Swallow ; it 

 came to us last year, after a long and tedious winter, as the 

 harbinger of more sunny skies, it will come again, and on 

 its arrival all nature will again begin to look green and gay ; 

 wherever we go, in town or country, this cheerful and most 

 elegant of birds is our companion, in one instant crossing our 

 path, and in the next coming to meet us, sweeping " over 

 our fields and rivers, and through our very streets, from morn- 

 ing to night, that the light of heaven itself, the sky, the 

 trees, or any other common objects of nature, are not better 

 known than the Swallows." 



The Swallow makes its nest in our chimneys, in barns, 



