COUNTRY LIFE
THREE swallows were seen at dose range over Port Meadow by Oxford on March 24, giving a good illustration of the influence of date over weather. The swallow has been taken as the type of spring and spring migration for at least the two thousand years since some pre-Aristotelian poet decided that "one swallow does not make spring." We have learned a deal of the northward, though not so much about the southward, journey of the swallows. They fly north from South Africa, the largest body perhaps preferring the coast line, on a wide front, obeying on the whole an isothermic line and making singularly consistent appearances according to the latitude. June in parts of Scandinavia corresponds to April in mid-England. However, they come in successive waves and the dates of the first nests vary more widely than the dates of arrival. One year a pair in my neighbourhood built in mid-April and reared four broods in the same nests, repaired and cleaned for them by the fond observer. Another year, on the same outhouse, only two broods were reared and the first nest was not finished till the second week of May. Instances have been multiplied of the local fidelity of the pairs over intervals as long as six years. Over all those thousands of miles a picture of home must have been at the back of their minds. Tennyson's "true and tender" were well up to his high standard of accuracy.
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