The swallow lays from four to six white eggs, dotted with red
specks; and brings out her first brood about the last week in June,
or the first week in July. The progressive method by which the
young are introduced into life is very amusing: first, they emerge
from the shaft with difficulty enough, and often fall down into the
rooms below: for a day or so they are fed on the chimney-top, and
then are conducted to the dead leafless bough of some tree, where,
sitting in a row, they are attended with great assiduity, and may
then be called perchers. In a day or two more they become flyers,
but are still unable to take their own food; therefore they play
about near the place where the dams are hawking for flies; and
when a mouthful is collected, at a certain signal given, the dam and
the nestling advance, rising towards each other, and meeting at an
angle; the young one all the while uttering such a little quick note
of gratitude and complacency, that a person must have paid very
little regard to the wonders of nature that has not often remarked
this feat.
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