- 148 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
the swallow is open at the top, and like half a deep dish: this 
nest is lined with fine grasses, and feathers, which are often 
collected as they float in the air. 
Wonderful is the address which this adroit bird shows all day — 
long in ascending and descending with security through so 
narrow a pass. When hovering over the mouth of the funnel, 
the vibrations of her wings acting on the confined air occasion 
a rumbling like thunder. It is not improbable that the dam 
submits to this inconvenient situation so low in the shaft in 
order to secure her broods from rapacious birds, and particularly 
from owls, which frequently fall down chimneys, perhaps in 
attempting to get at these nestlings. 
The swallow lays from four to six white eggs, dotted with red 
specks; and brings out her first brood about the last week in 
June, or the first week in July. The progressive method by 
which the young are introduced into life is very amusing: first, 
they emerge from the shaft with difficulty enough, and often 
fall down into the rooms below: for a day or so they are fed 
on the chimney-top, and then are conducted to the dead, leafless 
bough of some tree, where, sitting in a row, they are attended 
with great assiduity, and may then be called perchers. Ina 
day or two more they become flyers, but are still unable to take 
their own food; therefore they play about near the place where 
the dams are hawking for flies; and, when a mouthful is col- 
lected, at a certain signal given, the dam and the nestling 
advance, rising towards each other, and meeting at an angle ; 
the young one all the while uttering such a little quick note of 
gratitude and complacency, that a person must have paid very 
little regard to the wonders of Nature that has not often 
remarked this feat. 
The dam betakes herself immediately to the business of a 
second brood as soon as she is disengaged from her first ; which 
at once associates with the first broods of house-martins; and 
with them congregates, clustering on sunny roofs, towers, and 
