154 SPRING 



time when their decrease is being lamented in some of their 

 old ones. This has undeniably been the case in some recent 

 seasons with nightingales ; and the diminution of favourite 

 birds is always likely to attract prompter attention than their 

 increase. Gilbert White's writings make it clear that the 

 attacks of sparrows on house-martins are no new act of 

 aggression ; sparrows persecuted the martins in Selborne 

 Street much more than a hundred years ago. 



Swifts most plainly show their distinctness from the 

 swallow tribe by the much shorter time which they spend in 

 these northern climes. Like the nights of their own mid- 

 summer season, they come tardily and vanish soon. Their 

 season in Britain lasts for little more than three months; they 

 arrive in the first week in May, and leave in the second week 

 in August. These are the usual dates when they are first 

 noticed and missed ; but their main body arrives a little later 

 than the first detachments, and they are still pouring out of 

 England up to the beginning of September, while stragglers 

 can occasionally be seen as late as mid-October. A fort- 

 night after they have vanished from the towers and cottage- 

 eaves of their summer homes, the amassed remnants of their 

 hosts may still be seen veering in stormy dawns over the 

 southern headlands fronting the English Channel. They are 

 less ready than the swallows to seek food close to earth ; they 

 delay to come to England until the lengthening sunlight gene- 

 rates the swarms of insects that haunt the higher air. The 

 indrawing chills and darkness of late summer once more de- 

 populate the heights, and the swifts depart. Sweetly as the 

 robin sings again in August dawns, it is the signal of the 

 swifts' departure, and the rushing ardour of their flight is soon 

 lost from the summer sky. Clear summer mornings have no 

 more exalted note than the scream of the high-flying swifts ; 

 and their delight expresses itself again in the hottest hour of 



