close to the ground, and exerting the most sudden turns and quick evolutions. Avenues, and long walks under hedges, and pasture-fields, and mown meadows where cattle graze, are her delight, especially if there are trees interspersed; because in such spots insects most abound. When a fly is taken, a smart snap from her bill is heard, resembling the noise at the shutting of a watch-case; but the motion of the mandibles is too quick for the eye.

The swallow, probably the male bird, is the sentinel to house-martins and other little birds, announcing the approach of birds of prey. For as soon as a hawk appears, with a shrill alarming note he calls all the swallows and martins about him, who pursue in a body, and buffet and strike their enemy till they have driven him from the village, darting down from above on his back, and rising in a perpendicular line in perfect security. This bird also will sound the alarm, and strike at cats when they climb on the roofs of houses, or otherwise approach the nests.

Each species of swallow drinks as it flies along, sipping the surface of the water; but this swallow alone, in general, washes on the wing, by dropping into a pool for many times together. In very hot weather house-martins and bank-martins dip and wash a little.

It

The swallow is a delicate songster, and in soft sunny weather sings both perching and flying; on trees in a kind of concert, and on chimney-tops. is also a bold flyer, ranging to distant downs and commons, even in windy weather, which the other

species seem much to dislike; nay, even frequenting exposed seaport towns, and making little excursions over the salt water.

Horsemen on wide downs are often closely attended by a little party of swallows for miles together, which plays before and behind them, sweeping around 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.

Be

This species feeds much on little beetles, as well as on gnats and flies; and often settles on dug ground, or paths, for gravel to grind and digest its food. fore 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 on, at times, till the first week in November.

The little hedgerow birds,

That pluck along the road, regard him not.
He travels on, and in his face, his step,
His gait, is one expression: every limb,
His look and bending figure, all bespeak

A man who does not move with pain, but moves
With thought......

He is by nature led

To peace so perfect that the young behold
With envy what the old man hardly feels.

Wordsworth.

5. THE HOUSE-MARTIN.

A few house-martins begin to appear about the 16th of April; usually some few days later than the swallow. For some time after they appear, the swallows in general pay no attention to the business of nidification, but play and sport about, either to recruit from the fatigue of their journey, if they do migrate at all, or else that their blood may recover its true tone and texture after it has been so long benumbed by the severities of winter. About the middle of May, if the weather be fine, the martin begins to think in earnest of providing a mansion for its family.

The crust or shell of this nest seems to be formed of such dirt or loam as comes most readily to hand, and is tempered and wrought together with little bits of broken straws to render it tough and tenacious. As this bird often builds against a perpendicular wall without any projecting ledge under, it requires its utmost efforts to get the first foundation firmly fixed, so that it may safely carry the superstructure. On this occasion the bird not only clings with its claws, but partly supports itself by strongly inclining its tail against the wall, making that a fulcrum; and thus steadied, it works and plasters the materials into the face of the brick or stone.

But then, that this work may not, while it is soft and green, pull itself down by its own weight, the provident architect has prudence and forbearance enough not to advance her work too fast; but by

building only in the morning, and by dedicating the rest of the day to food and amusement, gives it sufficient time to dry and harden. About half an inch seems to be a sufficient layer for a day.

Thus careful workmen when they build mud walls (informed at first perhaps by this little bird) raise but a moderate layer at a time, and then desist, lest the work should become top-heavy, and so be ruined by its own weight. By this method in about ten or twelve days is formed a hemispheric nest, with a small aperture towards the top, strong, compact, and warm, and perfectly fitted for all the purposes for which it was intended. But then nothing is more common than for the house-sparrow, as soon as the shell is finished, to seize on it as its own, to eject the owner, and to line it after its own manner.

After so much labour is bestowed in erecting a mansion, as nature seldom works in vain, martins will breed on for several years together in the same nest, where it happens to be well sheltered and secure from the injuries of the weather. The shell or crust of

the nest is a sort of rustic-work full of knobs and protuberances on the outside; nor is the inside of those that I have examined smoothed with any exactness at all, but is rendered soft and warm, and fit for incubation, by a lining of small straws, grasses, and feathers, and sometimes by a bed of moss interwoven with wool.

As the young of small birds presently arrive at their full growth, they soon become impatient of confinement, and sit all day with their heads out at the

orifice, where the dams, by clinging to the nest, supply them with food from morning till night. For a time the young are fed on the wing by their parents; but the feat is done by so quick and almost imperceptible a sleight, that a person must have attended very exactly to their motions before he would be able to perceive it. As soon as the young are able to shift for themselves, the dams immediately turn their thoughts to the business of a second brood; while the first flight, shaken off and rejected by their nurses, congregate in great flocks, and are the birds that are seen clustering and hovering on sunny mornings and evenings round towers and steeples, and on the roofs of churches and houses.

These congregatings usually begin to take place about the first week in August, and therefore we may conclude that by that time the first flight is pretty well over. The young of this species do not quit their abodes altogether; but the more forward birds get abroad some days before the rest. These approaching the eaves of buildings and playing about before them, make people think that several old ones attend one nest. They are often capricious in fixing on a nesting-place, beginning many edifices, and leaving them unfinished; but when once a nest is completed in a sheltered place, it serves for several seasons. Those which breed in a ready-finished house get the start, in hatching, of those that build new, by ten days or a fortnight.

These industrious artificers are at their labour in the long days before four in the morning; when they