THE COMMON SWALLOW. 
381 
which time the swallows found admittance, and after much appa- 
rent deliberation commenced their structure, which they carried 
on chiefly during the hours of the school ; and though they had 
abundance of time to build, either before the school commenced, 
or after it was dispersed, yet they always preferred a few hours 
about noon for their labour, and seemed to do little at any other 
time. The scholars, much to their credit, gave them as little 
annoyance as possible, and the window is still kept down.” 
Under a very low shed in the hawk-yard at the Tails near Bel- 
fast, where my friend John Sinclaire, Esq., kept his trained pere- 
grine falcons, a pair of swallows, regardless of the almost constant 
presence of four of these birds, constructed a nest in the summer 
of 1832. The man in charge of the hawks tore down the partly 
formed nest several times, but the swallows were not to be so de- 
terred, and persisted in completing it within about three yards of 
a block, on which one of the hawks constantly perched : in due 
time the young appeared and got off in safety. Although such places 
as the swallow usually prefers for its nest, are not only contiguous 
to, but numerous in, the immediate vicinity of the hawk-yard, and 
all the other sheds and office-houses are considerably higher than 
the erection there, this singular locality was again selected in 1833. 
The nest of the former year was once more used, most probably 
by the same pair or their progeny, as it is an established fact that 
swallows return to the same place year after year, and that the 
young revisit the place of their birth.* The brood escaped from 
it without any casualty. There were five falcons there that season. 
Two new nests were also built and successfully occupied ; one of 
which, I remarked on the 10th of August, contained eggs for a 
second brood, and on the 19th of the same month, I had the 
* We find a similar remark with respect to Lycia in Spratt and Forbes’ work 
on that country. “ Frequently in the Turkish houses we saw the nests of swallows 
stuck about all parts of the ceiling, each with a small piece of board fixed under to 
prevent the droppings soiling the cushions of the divan or the carpets. * * * 
The same birds, both among the storks and swallows, are said to return each year to 
the old nests, so that an annual fight takes place between the young of the past year 
and the parent birds for its possession. The noise they make during these combats 
is by no means agreeable or conducive to sleep, as we found by experience, in the 
village of Eski Hissar, where the walls of our dwelling-house were studded with the 
nests of swallows.” — vol. i. p. 281 , 282 . 
