180 THE PASSING OF THE BIRDS. 
some such matter, we shall have seen the 
last of their saucy antics. Gay tyrants! 
They are among the first birds of whom | 
can confidently say, “They are gone;” and 
they seem as wide-awake when they go as 
when they come. Being a man, I regret 
their departure; but if I were a crow, I 
think I should be for observing the 31st of 
August as a day of annual jubilee. 
A few years ago, in September, I saw the 
white-breasted swallows congregated in the 
Ipswich dunes, —a sight never to be forgot- 
ten.. On the morning of the 9th, the fourth 
day of our visit, a considerable flock — but 
no more, perhaps, than we had been seeing 
daily —came skimming over the marshes 
and settled upon a sand-bar in the river, 
darkening it in patches. At eight o’clock, 
when we took the straggling road out of 
the hills, a good many — there might be a 
thousand, I guessed — sat upon the fence 
wires, as if resting. We walked inland, 
and on our return, at noon, found, as my 
notes of the day express it, “‘an innumerable 
host, thousands upon thousands,” about the 
landward side of the dunes. Fences and 
haycocks were covered. Multitudes were on 
