birds. The nest is usually built in May, and is a shallow structure, formed of small twigs, lined with a few root fibres, and containing about four slate-coloured eggs, spotted with purplish or pale orange brown at the larger ends. Two broods are reared in the year, and the nest is placed in the sloe, hawthorn, or other low tree or bush. Sometimes the gooseberry is chosen, and occasionally the bullfinch builds among the roses and their green sprays.

This bird is also called Pope, Coal-hood, Tonyhoop, Alp, Nope, or Monk; and is the Bouvreuil commun of the French, and the Blutfink of the Germans.

CHAPTER X.

THE SWALLOW TRIBE.

EVERY one who at all observes the mere external aspects of nature, the changing seasons, the budding trees and the opening flowers, has become acquainted with the Swallow. We all look with pleasure on the first swallow, which in April skims through the air before us: and though, as the proverb common to most European nations expresses it, "One swallow does not make a summer," yet is even the stray bird an indication of coming multitudes, and of all beauties and delights associated with that rich season. Even the inhabitant of the city, far from the wild flowers and green boughs which he loves so well, watches for the coming of the first swallow, and thinks of the lanes and meadows among which the pearly whitethorn is beginning to bud, and where the violet,

and primrose, and anemone, and bluebell peep through the hedges; and where the cottage chimney, which the swallows have long haunted, rises above the garden plots, gay with polyanthuses and daffodils, and sweet-scented wallflowers. And when, a few days after, when even the last bleak wind of winter has ceased to stir the woods, and the birds, rejoicing in sweet vernal showers, come in great numbers, we hail them with delight, and wonder not that the prophet Jeremiah, while lamenting the faithlessness of God's chosen people, should remind them of the constancy of the migratory birds, and say: "The stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed time, and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming." We wonder not that the people of Greece, ever loving the sunshine, ever alive to the genial influences of nature, held a festival at their arrival; and that children went about the cities and villages in procession, receiving presents at every door, and stopping to chaunt, to the sound of musical instruments, a welcome to the swallow. Well might Sir Humphrey Davy call this bird the joyous prophet of the year, the harbinger of the best season, leaving the green

meadows of England in autumn, for the myrtle and olive groves of Italy, or for the tall palms of Africa, and coming to us as it does early in April.

Nor is it alone because of its association with spring, that we value the swallow tribe. At all times the habits of these birds are interesting, their motions and actions elegant. Skimming the air in most graceful evolutions, continually crossing each other's path,—yet never striking one against another; wheeling on high without any confusion, and on untiring wing, they are, though of sober plumage, the most beautiful of birds. Now they descend and skim lightly a little way above the grass, or over the city's pavement, and we say that rain is coming. Do the swallows come from their height to tell us this? Nay, but the air is already humid and chill, and the nice perceptions of the insect tribe have discovered it, though as yet we feel it not, and their slight wings refuse to carry them high in air, and the swallow knowing this too, by his sensations, or by that great power of sight which can alone conduct him safely with rapidity, comes down to hunt for his insect-prey.

Many birds are very conscious of approaching

atmospheric changes, and may well be relied on as giving indications of these in various ways. Nor is it the bird alone, which is thus influenced. All animals, which living entirely in the air are exposed to its variations, are far more cognisant of these changes than we are. Thus the frogs croak in the pool, and the cattle run wildly over the meadow, and eat with unusual voracity their meal from the grass; the ants bring back the chrysalides to their nest; the earthworm comes up to the surface, to respire the welcome moisture; and the very fishes in the pool seem to know that rain is coming, and arise up to the surface. Yet the shepherd cannot feel these changes, though he may observe their prognostics, and see how the leaves of the clover field are standing upright, and the scarlet pimpernel is folding its petals, and hear more clearly the usual sound of some distant sheep-bell, or of some trickling waterfall, as it comes down the slope of the hill.

We have four species of the Swallow tribe. The Common Swallow (Hirundo rustica), the Martin (Hirundo urbica), the Sand Martin (Hirundo riparia), and the Swift (Cypselus apus), all alike, in many of their habits, and all coming