146 THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS. 
broods from rapacious birds, and particularly from 
owls, which frequently fall down chimneys, perhaps 
in attempting to get at these nestlings. 
All the summer long is the swallow a most in- 
structive pattern of unwearied industry and affection . 
for, from morning to night, while there is a family to 
be supported, she spends the whole day in skimming 
close to the ground, and exerting the most sudden 
turns and quick evolutions. Avenues, and long 
walks under hedges, and pasture fields, and mown 
fields, where cattle graze, are her delight, especially 
if there are trees interspersed ; because in such 
spots insects most abound. When a fly is taken, 
a smart snap from her bill is heard, resembling the 
noise at the shutting of a watch-case ; but the mo- 
tion of the mandibles is too quick for the eye. The 
swallow, probably the male bird, is the excubitor to 
house-martins, and other little birds, announcing the 
approach of birds of prey ; for as soon as a hawk 
appears, with a shrill, alarming note, he calls all the 
swallows and martins about him, who pursue in a 
body, and buffet and strike their enemy, till they have 
driven him from their village, darting down from 
above on his back, and rising in a perpendicular line 
