“ All in ye Merrie Month of May ” 
ago the Swallow was as sweet a woodland singer as the 
Nightingale. But she grew weary of being only admired 
occasionally by stray country folk and departed to the town, 
hoping to be made more of. She found, however, men 
were too busy to listen to her, so she gave up singing and 
took to building* under the house-eaves. Longfellow 
alludes to a quaint old notion that the Swallow seeks on 
the seashore a wonderful stone wherewith to cure defective 
sight in her nestlings, and those who find it in the Swallow’s 
nest will be lucky. There is an old Border superstition 
the Swallow drinks a drop of the Dell’s blood every day. 
Still it is unlucky to kill a Swallow. I am told some of 
the weakly Swallows never go abroad but spend the winter 
here. I wonder if they remain torpid in the depths of 
their holes ? Bank Swallows are said, if a cold-weather 
spell comes after they have arrived, to gather in clusters in 
the holes in the bank where they put their nests. I am 
not sure if this can be the truth, as White of Selborne, who 
seems to have been a most careful observer, positively asserts 
they “ do not make use of their caverns as hybernacula.” 
It was certainly a belief in olden days Swallows hybernated 
either at the bottom of ponds (!) or in clefts of rocks, or, in 
America, in hollow trees, called Swallow-trees. I have 
tried in vain to investigate the Bank Swallows’ homes ; here 
they run in too far for me to see anything. 
There is an old Border saying, which runs thus : 
Seven sleepers there be, 
The Bat, the Bee and the Butterflee, 
The Cnckoo and the Swallow, 
The Kittiwake and Corncrake, 
Sleep a’ in a little hollie. 
And it is often a matter of speculation with gamekeepers 
what the “ paitricks dae wi’ themselves all winter,” since a 
certain number of partridges yearly escape being shot, and 
are never seen about afterwards. 
The Bluebells, or Wild Hyacinths as they are called here, 
are beginning to show, and the sweet white Woodruff is in 
bud. 
i37 
