THE SWALLOW'S STONE. 283 



stones,' and to examine them. I found them to be the 

 hard polished calcareous opercula of some species of 

 Turbo, and although their worn state precludes the idea 

 of identifying the species, yet I am confident that they be- 

 long to no European Turbo. The largest I have seen was 

 three-eighths of an inch long, and one-fourth of an inch 

 broad ; one side is flat, or nearly so, and the other is 

 convex, more or less so in different specimens. Their 

 peculiar shape enables one to push them under the eye- 

 lid across the eyeball, and thus they remove any eye- 

 lash or other foreign substance which may have got in 

 one's eye ;* further than this, they have no curing power : 

 the peasants, however, believe they are omnipotent. The 

 presence of these opercula in swallows' nests is very 

 curious,-)- and leads one to suppose that they must have 

 been brought there from some distant shore in the 

 swallow's stomach. If so, they must have inhabited the 

 poor bird for a considerable time, and proved a great 

 nuisance to it." 



The tradition on this subject, current amongst the 

 peasants in Brittany, is no doubt of some antiquity,J since 



• One would suppose that such a foreign substance as a " swallow-stone" in 

 the eye would be much more inconvenient than the eyelash which it was destined 

 to remove. 



j" Curious, if true. Dr. Lebour does not say that he ever found such stones 

 himself, nor does he vouch for their having been found by others in the nests. 

 We have examined a great number of swallows' nests without being able to 

 discover anything of the kind. 



X Pliny makes mention of a " swallow-stone," but says nothing about its being 

 found in the nest. On the contrary, he says it is found in (he stomach of the 



