Delagoa Bay; Its Natives and Natural History (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III; Swallows are very numerous, and a curious incident occurred one day connected with them. It was in the 7 beginning of March, and the rain had poured in torrents all night.and continued the whole of the next day, the wind blowing a perfect hurricane, the thermometer suddenly dropping to 63 About 11 A.m. a drenched, miserable swallow flew into the house and perched himself on one of the partitions of the rooms; then one flew into the kitchen, and my boy caught it and brought it to me. I held the poor mite in my hands for a little while, to warm him, and then let him fly up to his companion in misfortune, by whose side he at once nestled down. In a few minutes more began to come in, at first singly, then by twos and threes, some fluttering helplessly among the white window curtains and beating themselves against the glass. These I caught and let fly up to their friends, and was surprised to find that they were not in the least alarmed at being touched, but seemed to like the warmth of the hand, and would perch quite confidingly on my finger, and not attempt to move when I stroked their little heads. Many were brought me half dead by women and boys, who had picked them up from the ground, and who all wanted a " pen" (threepence) for them; but for answer I only pointed to my fast-filling house, so they laughed and letINVADED BY SWALLOWS. 49 me keep the birds, which soon recovered in the dry room. One poor little thing I found suspended in a large spider's web, and although the wiugs of a swallow seem so powerful, it was quite unable to extricate itself. They continued to come ill all day, and before five o'clock more thati a hundred had taken shelter, and the twittering and fuss that went on was most amusing. When it began to grow dark they packed the...