Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1877 — French Swallows. [ARTICLE]

French Swallows.

A correspondent describes iu Nature the curious custom of the swallows inhabiting the Vallqj- ot Cabrolles, near Menton, France, of building their nests in houses tenanted by the people. The nests of these social birds are attached to the beams supporting the ceilings, and the owners make themselves perfectly at home, under these strange Cifcumstances, during the period of rearing their young. On their return from their.winter migrations, the swallows immediately take po£ session of their former nAbications, and eS-< tablish themselves for the season. - “ The first swallow,” says the writer, “ arrived here alone in the rain on Monday, March 19 It entered the best room of the cure by one of Ifie windows which chanced to want a pane, aad the good old man immediately removed a pane from the other window, by which the swallows had been in the habit of going in and out. I did not hear of the arrival' of this summer resident until the 23d, when I immediately paid it a visit. It is still solitary, but not uncomfortable; it flits about the room from place to place, and from nest to nest, twittering very contentedly, and, when a fright hour comes, it flies out where, sporting in the sun, it soon makes a hearty meal. “ Madame Valetta, an old woman of seventy-three, has two or three times given me a graphic account of how, when she was a young woman and had a husband by her side, they were both frightened almost to death one night bv something which from time to time gave a flip-flap against the glass of the window. Madame, however, summoned courage to urge her husband to get up and open the window, which, though‘all of a shake,’ he did, when, whish! very like a spirit, a weary swallow glided past him, and was the same instant peacefully , reposing in its nest.”