64 The House-martin^ or Whidow-swallow. 



Though gifted with wings wonderfully constructed for pro- 

 longed flight, and though having passed every day of so many 

 successive months almost wholly on the wing, the swallow 

 frequently suffers great fatigue and exhaustion in its long 

 migration. Sometimes, probably driven out of its course by 

 adverse winds, it is known to alight by hundreds on the rigging 

 of vessels, when worn out by hunger and fatigue it is too often 

 shot or cruelly treated. Nevertheless the swallow, protected 

 by Him who cares for the sparrow, generally braves the hard- 

 ships of migration, and the following spring, guided by the 

 same mysterious instinct, finds his way across continents and 

 seas to his old home, where, identified by some little mark 

 which has been put upon him — a silken thread as a garter, or a 

 light silver ring — he is recognised as the old familiar friend, 

 and appears to be no less happy to be once more with them 

 than are they to welcome him. Sometimes swallows coming 

 back as ordinary strangers, prove their identity, even though 

 the scene of their last year's home may have been pulled down, 

 together with the human habitation. In this case, he has been 

 known to fly about in a distracted way, lamenting the change 

 that had taken place, and seeming as if nothing would 

 comfort him. 



Though the fact of swallows coming back to their old haunts 

 does not need proving, yet I will close my chapter with an 

 incident which occurred in our own family. During a summer 

 storm, a martin's nest, with young, was washed from the eaves 

 of my husband's paternal home. His mother, a great friend 

 to all birds, placed the nest with the young, which happily were 

 uninjured, in a window, which, being generally open, allowed 



