* • LATE SWALLOWS.
Though it is November, I see that someone has reported a laggard swallow or two. Let me give the final record or a family history that a neighbour has been chronicling in a notebook for the last six months. The pair, as I have reported elsewhere, produced four successive broods in the same nest. They were enabled to do this by the archi- tectural assistance of the cottage owner, whom they watched (and cheered) when she built up and reconditioned the damaged nest, needing for the kindly deed no assistance from the Act of 1926 ! It seemed at one time that this last brood could not grow fast enough to be ready for the autumnal migration ; but the parents fed them intensively, exercised them, did what gardeners describe as " hardening off " by making them roost at times outside the nest, and so efficient was the training that they were strong on the wing less than three weeks after hatching. The whole family was last seen at 11.45 on Monday, October 19th. It is probable that they drifted south—they were born twenty-six miles north of London—before taking the last long journey to Africa.
Previous page
