“150 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
party of swallows for miles together, which plays before 
and behind them, sweeping around them, and collecting all 
the skulking insects that are roused by the trampling of 
the horses’ feet: when the ‘wind blows hard, without this 
expedient, they are often forced to settle to pick up their 
lurking prey. 
This species feeds much on little Coleoptera,’ as well as on 
gnats and flies; and often settles on dug ground, or paths, for 
gravels to grind and digest its food. Before they depart, for 
some weeks, to a bird, they forsake houses and chimneys, and 
roost in trees; and usually withdraw about the beginning of 
October; though some few stragglers may appear at times till 
the first week in November. 
Some few pairs haunt the new and open streets of London 
next the fields, but do not enter, like the house-martin, the close 
and crowded parts of the city. 
After this circumstantial detail of the life of the swallow, I 
shall add, for your further amusement, an anecdote or two not 
much in favor of her sagacity. 
A certain swallow built for two years together on the handles 
of a pair of garden-shears, that were stuck up against the 
boards in an out-house, and therefore must have her nest spoiled 
whenever that implement was wanted: and, what is stranger 
still, another bird of the same species built its nest on the 
wings and body of an owl, that happened by accident to hang 
dead and dry from the rafter of a barn. This owl, with the 
nest on its wings, and with eggs in the nest, was brought as a 
curiosity worthy the most elegant private museum in Great 
Britain. The owner, struck with the oddity of the sight, fur- 
nished the bringer with a large shell, or conch, desiring him to 
fix it just where the owl hung: the person did as he was 
ordered, and the following year a: pair, probably the same pair, 
built their nest in the conch, and laid their eggs. 
1 Coleoptera —an order of insects commonly known as beetles. 
