GILBERT white's BOOK 175 



in a pretty, inward, soft manner in its nest. Again, 

 the swift, which answers to our chimney swallow, 

 he says, has only a harsh, screaming note or two. 

 But our swift has a very pretty chippering note or 

 call, which it indulges in on the wing, and which 

 approaches very nearly to a song. On the whole, 

 I conclude from White's account that the common 

 European swallow has more music in him than ours 

 has, while our swift and martin are more musical 

 than the corresponding species in that country. 

 There is this marked difference between the habits 

 of the birds in the two hemispheres: the swallow 

 that in Europe builds in chimneys, and is called 

 the house or chimney swallow, in this country 

 builds in barns and other outhouses, and is called 

 the barn swallow; while the swift, which builds in 

 chimneys here, and uses as material small twigs 

 gathered from the tops of dry trees, in England 

 builds in crannies of castles and towers and steeples, 

 and uses for material dry grasses and feathers, — 

 which, however, it seems to gather on the wing, as 

 our bird does its twigs. 



White says that birds that build on the ground 

 do not make much of their nests, — that is, I sup- 

 pose, are not much attached to them. But this 

 observation would not hold in this country. Our 

 song sparrow and field sparrow, our bobolink, and 

 oven-bird, and chewink, and brown thrasher, and 

 Canada warbler, show as strong an attachment for 

 their nests as do the tree-builders, and use as many 

 arts to decoy the intruder away from them. They 



