A Book on Birds 



However, you don't do anything of the 

 sort; at least not on this initial occasion; 

 but simply look and listen in astonishment 

 and delight, thinking how much indeed 

 you missed by not getting thoroughly 

 acquainted with him until so late a day in 

 your ornithological career. 



And now, from amidst the same mid- 

 summer flight of winged memories which 

 still encircles us, suppose we permit the 

 Barn Swallow to engage our attention. 



Should you ever feel upon a particularly 

 vernal morning that you are advancing 

 in 3^ears, and, stirred by the sunlit air, 

 wonder to yourself whether any of the pure 

 spontaneity and freedom of childhood still 

 remain in your anatomy, let me suggest 

 that you sally forth and search till you 

 find a field near some farmhouse nestling 

 amidst the hills — a field with nothing 

 between it and the azure firmament but 

 one or two white and dazzhng ^^sky- 

 mountains,'' towering in great masses 

 toward the zenith — and there try a game 

 of ^^dodge-the-ball" with this jolly bird. 



[142] 



