Birds. 869 



tomed to meet with this bird's nest placed against the rafters of the outhouses of farm 

 steadings, " lignis nidos suspendat," as Gilbert White quotes, and never otherwise, the 

 instances supplied by your correspondents, of its also betaking itself to chimneys in 

 that country, as in the south of England, were new and unexpected, Being led to 

 make inquiries, I have met with three well-attested cases, in which the barn and the 

 cattle-sheds were abandoned, and a closer familiarity with man cultivated. They 

 were all in Berwickshire, and in the immediate vicinity of those recorded by the 

 Rev. Mr. Atkinson. At Flemington-mill, on the small river Eye, a pair of swallows 

 were accustomed, for years, to place their nest on a projecting piece of wood, under 

 cover of the black-old-wife-like hood, which it is customary to see on the summit of 

 mills. Here they enjoyed, uninterrupted, many a happy summer hour ; a special eye 

 being kept on the affectionate pair by the owner of the mill. In process of time, 

 however, the mill, " vetustate conlapsa," yielding to age, was removed and repaired ; 

 but, in the meanwhile, before their sooty tabernacle, could be replaced, the swallows 

 had become attached to a new, and less disturbed locality. There is, in the village of 

 Ayton, a chimney of a house adjoining to an inn, out of which, a pair of swallows, 

 in their season, may be seen issuing, and then returning, as if they had there reared 

 their summer home. The house is used as a washhouse and stable, and the fire is 

 probably kindled in it, about once in the month. In the village of Whitsome, there 

 is a chimney, says my authority, in which swallows (not the same pair I presume) 

 have built, for at least, some thirty years. No fire had been on the hearth to which 

 it appertained, for some moiety of the same period. An amusing accident happened 

 to a friend, in reference to this very chimney. It was a winter day, and he had the 

 room assigned to him, with which this chimney was connected. Without a propitia- 

 tion to Vesta, in such inclement weather, the cold would have been intolerable. It 

 was therefore resolved to light a fire that day. But scarcely had the smoke found 

 its way up the damp, unaccustomed chimney, when, loosened from its ancient hold, 

 down came plump into the midst of the flames, and with many a scattered fragment 

 along the floor, the laboured pile of nearly half a century of swallows' assiduity. 

 Here was the argumentum ad hominem ! 



In the choice of a site for their nest, in these several instances, the birds had been 

 guided by circumstances. In villages, and near gentlemen's seats, few open offices 

 occur, and a chimney seldom used is the readiest resource. In the country, there are 

 few chimneys long unused, but then the outhouses are never closed. I know an 

 instance where the swallows build annually, in a ruinated cottage, to which they gain 

 admission through the window. They have the option of two chimneys, but they 

 prefer to conceal their nest behind a turf depending from the dilapidated roof. It 

 is a popular belief, in Berwickshire, that every swallow's nest is provided with a small 

 piece of glass ; whether or not for the purpose of pluming itself in the gleam of day 

 dawn, I leave to those writers in * The Zoologist,' who have discussed the wagtails' 

 attention to the window-panes.* It also, and probably by the same dubious light, 



* A very good instance of the engrossing character of a window, I lately wit- 

 nessed in a cock. He seemed to be a widower. Morning after morning, and with 

 much agitation, he promenaded backwards and forwards on an outhouse, whose roof 

 was level with a window. He was there in the morning, when I looked out, and in 

 the evening, like one " crazed in hopeless love,'' he was still hurrying hither and 

 thither. His owners probably pitied his cares, and I saw no more of him. 



