THE SWALLOWS. 79 



Poiet. — I delight iii this living landscape! 

 The swallow is one of my favourite birds, 

 and a rival of the nightingale ; for he glads 

 my sense of seeing as much as the other 

 does my sense of hearing. He is the joyous 

 prophet of the year — the harbinger of the 

 best season : he lives a life of enjoyment 

 amongst the loveliest forms of nature : win- 

 ter is unknown to him; and he leaves the 

 green meadows of England in autumn, for 

 the myrtle and orange groves of Italy, and 

 for the palms of Africa: — he has always 

 objects of pursuit, and his success is secure. 

 Even the beings selected for his prey are 

 poetical, beautiful, and transient. The 

 ephemerae are saved by his means from a 

 slow and lingering death in the evening, and 

 killed in a moment, when they have known 

 nothing of life but pleasure. He is the 

 constant destroyer of insects, — the friend of 

 man ; and with the stork and the ibis, may 

 be regarded as a sacred bird. His in- 

 stinct, which gives him his appointed sea- 

 sons, and which teaches him always when 



