Many Mansions
The sequel to a story about a pair of swallows told last summer has just become known to me ; and as swallow-time is approaching and the incident is curious, it may not be unseasonable or unsuitable to report what exactly happened. The pair built no fewer than four nests in the purliebs of a Hertfordshire house ; one egg was laid in nest B, but the hen then transferred herself to nest A and duly brought off a family. She then went back to nest B and brought up another family there. When the birds (of both families) could fly they came back every evening and roosted, if that is the word, in any and every one of the four nests. Young swallows of the last brood commonly come back to the old nest to sleep and some few species of bird make several nests. In the ease of the moorhens, who are as indefatigable builders as the cock wren, the extra nests are made for the sake of the grown young, who, indeed, will lend a hand. I have known a pair of swallows to bring up four successive families ; but this combination of habits in the philoprogcnitive swallow is quite new, so far as my experience goes.
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