The problem becomes thornier with the second species. The Domestic Swallow, who has much more confidence in our hospitality and is also perhaps more susceptible to cold, establishes himself as often as possible inside our houses. The embrasure of a window, the under surface of a balcony will satisfy his requirements at need; but he prefers the shed, the loft, the stable or an empty room. His familiarity even reaches the point of cohabitation with man in the same apartment. No more timid than the Pelopæus in taking possession of the premises, he installs himself in the farm-kitchen and builds upon the peasant’s smoke-blacked rafters; more venturesome even than the pot-making insect, he appropriates the drawing-room, the study, the bedroom or any well-kept chamber that leaves him at liberty to come and go. Each spring I have to defend myself against his bold usurpations. I gladly surrender to him the shed, the cellar-porch, the Dog’s corner, the woodshed and other outhouses. This does not suffice for his ambitious views: he wants my study. At one time he tries to make his home on the curtain-rod, at another on the lintel of the open window. In vain I strive to make him understand, by destroying the foundations of his edifice as he lays them, how dangerous to his nest is the shifting support of a casement, which must be closed from time to time, at the risk of crushing house and brood alike, and how disagreeable for my curtains this dirty business is, with its mud and, later, the excretions of the young birds: I do not succeed in convincing him; and to put an end to his determined enterprise I am compelled to keep the windows shut. If I open them too soon, he returns with his beakful of clay and begins all over again. Instructed by experience, I know what it would cost me to grant the hospitality demanded so persistently. If I were to leave some precious book open on the table, some drawing of a mushroom, my morning’s work and still quite fresh from the brush, [52] he would not fail, in passing, to drop his muddy seal or his stercoral initials upon it. These little annoyances have made me suspicious; and I remain obdurate to all my visitor’s importunities. Once only I allowed myself to be beguiled. The nest was placed in a corner of the ceiling and the wall, on some plaster mouldings. Below it stood a marble console-table, usually covered with books which I had to be constantly consulting. In anticipation of events, I moved my reference-library away. All went well until the eggs were hatched; but, as soon as the young birds were there, things changed. With their insatiable stomachs, into which the food had barely passed before it was digested and dissolved, the six fledgelings became unendurable. Every minute—flick, flack!—it rained guano on the console. If my poor books had been there, oh dear, oh dear!