ticular
yew which the bird did me the honour to select had been clipped long
ago into a similitude of Adam, and, in fact, went by his name. The
resemblance to a human figure was, of course, remote, but the intention
was evident. In the black shock head of our first parent did the birds
establish their habitation. A prettier, rounder, more comfortable nest
I never saw, and many a wild swing it got when Adam bent his back, and
bobbed and shook his head when the bitter east wind was blowing. The
nest interested me, and I visited it every day from the time the first
stained turquoise sphere was laid in the warm lining of moss and
horse-hair, till, when I chirped, four red hungry throats, eager for
worm or slug, opened out of a confused mass of feathery down. What a
hungry brood it was, to be sure, and how often father and mother were
put to it to provide them sustenance! I went but the other day to have
a peep, and, behold! brood and parent-birds were gone, the nest was
empty, Adam's visitors had departed. In the corners of my bedroom
window I have a couple of swallows' nests, and nothing can be
pleasanter in these summer mornings than to lie in a kind of
half-dream, conscious all the time of the chatterings and endearments
of the man-loving creatures. They are beautifully restless, and are
continually darting around their nests in the window-corners. All at
once there is a great twittering and noise; something of moment has
been witnessed, something of importance has occurred in the
swallow-world,--perhaps a fly of unusual size or savour has been
bolted. Clinging with their feet, and with heads turned charmingly
aside, they chatter away with voluble sweetness, then with a gleam of
silver they are gone, and in a trice one is poising itself in the wind
above my tree-tops, while the other dips her wing as she darts after a
fly through the arches of the bridge which lets the slow stream down to
the sea. I go to the southern wall, against which I have trained my
fruit-trees, and find it a sheet of white and vermeil blossom; and as I
know it by heart, I can notice what changes take place on it day by
day, what later clumps of buds have burst into colour and odour. What
beauty in that blooming wall! the wedding-presents of a princess ranged
for admiration would not please me half so much; what delicate
colouring! what fragrance the thievish winds steal from it, without
making it one odour the poorer! with what a compla