THE SWALLOW. 53 



Wonderful adroitness. 



strike at cats, when they climb on the roofs of 

 houses, or otherwise approach the nests. 



Wonderful, observes Mr. White, is the ad- 

 dress which this adroit bird exhibits in ascending 

 and descending with security through the nar- 

 row passage of a chimney. When hovering over 

 the mouth of the funnel, the vibrations of its 

 wings acting on the confined air, occasion a 

 rumbling like distant thunder. It is not impro- 

 bable that the dam submits to the inconvenience 

 of having her nest low down in the shaft, in or- 

 der to have her brood secure from rapacious 

 birds ; and particularly from owls, which are fre- 

 quently found to fall down chimneys, probably 

 jn their attempts to get at the nestlings. 



A writer in the gentleman's magazine observes, 

 that " by the myriads of insects which every 

 single brood of swallows destroy, in the course of 

 a summer, these birds defend us in a great mea- 

 sure from the personal and domestic annoyance 

 of flies and gnats; and what is of infinitely more 

 consequence, they keep down the numbers of our 

 minute enemies, which, either in the grub or 

 winged state, would otherwise prey on the labours 

 of the husbandman. Since then swallows are 

 guardians of our corn, they should every where 

 be protected by the same popular veneration 

 which in Egypt defends the ibis, and the stork in 

 Holland. We more frequently hear of unpro- 

 ductive harvests on the continent than in this 

 country ; and it is well known that swallows are 



