OUPv HOME BIRDS. 
63 
“ In a nobleman’s house in Scotland a swallow 
once built its nest on a bracket which was placed in 
a passage-way close to the kitchen-door for the pur- 
pose of holding a lamp, which had to be taken dowrn 
every day to be trimmed and lighted every evening. 
The swallow did not seem to mind this at all, but re- 
turned to the same spot for three or four years. It 
then changed its residence to the inside of the wooden 
cover of the great house-bell, on the opposite side of 
the same open court. The bell w^as always rung 
several times a day to call the servants to their 
meals, and must have made a terrible din in the 
very ears of the swallow^ family, but they never 
appeared to be in the least disturbed either by that 
or by the rattling of the rope. 
“Scarcely a barn to which these birds can find 
access is without them ; and as they are great favor- 
ites with the public generally, they are seldom dis- 
turbed. There is an apparent glee and sportiveness 
among sv 7 allov T s ; and in some of their performances 
they display not a little mischief. Some one watched 
a party of them one day who seemed to have taken 
it into their heads to plague a cat as she seated her- 
self upon the top of a gate-post and appeared to be 
thinking deeply about some important matter. One 
of the swallows, approaching the cat from behind, 
flew close by her ear, as if to show hov T near it dared 
