170 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



gnats and flies : and often settles on dug ground, or 

 paths, for gravels to grind and digest its food. Before 

 they depart, for some weeks, to a bird, they forsake 

 houses and chimnies, and roost in trees ; and usually 

 withdraw about the beginning of October ; though some 

 few stragglers may appear on at times till the first week 

 in November. 



Some few pairs haunt the new and open streets of 

 London next the fields, but do not enter, like the 

 house-martin, the close aad crowded parts of the 

 city. 



Both male and female are distinguished from their con- 

 geners by the length and forkedness of their tails. They 

 are undoubtedly the most nimble of all the species : and 

 when the male pursues the female in amorous chase, they 

 then go beyond their usual speed, and exert a rapidity 

 almost too quick for the eye to follow. 



After this circumstantial detail of the hfe and discern- 

 ing cTTopyrj of the swallow, I shall add, for your farther 

 amusement, an anecdote or two not much in favour of 

 her sagacity : — 



A certain swallow built for two years together on the 

 handles of a pair of garden-sliears, that were stuck up 

 against the boards in an out-house, and therefore must 

 have her nest spoiled whenever that implement was 

 Avanted : and, what is stranger still, another bird of the 

 same species built its nest on the wings and body of an 

 owl that happened by accident to hang dead and dry 

 from the rafter of a barn. This owl, with the nest on its 

 wings, and with eggs in the nest, was brought as a 

 curiosity worthy the most elegant private museum in 

 Great Britain. The owner, struck with the oddity of the 

 sight, furnished the bringer with a large shell, or conch, 

 desiring him to fix it just where the owl hung : the person 

 did as he was ordered, and the following year a pair, 



