80 LEAVES FROM THE 



enabling tlie bird to sustain itself for hours in the air, 

 and there execute such rapid and changing turns and 

 evolutions as the desultory movements of its insect prey 

 require, and with a celerity that the eye can hardly 

 follow. Yirgil found no better simile for the velocity 

 and dexterity exhibited by Juturna, when driving her 

 brother's chariot, to save him from falling into the hands 

 of ^neas ; nor Ariosto for the rapidity of the ship 

 wherein Orlando Furioso desired to cleave the waters. 



The multitudes of insects destroyed by a pair of 

 swallows in the breeding season, may be imagined from 

 the number of flies that went to make up the daily 

 rations of Mr. Trevelyan's tame bird. Theocritus, 

 through whose verse Nature breathes, had evidently 

 observed the multitudinous visits and departures from 

 the nest for the purpose of feeding the young, and 

 alludes to them with his wonted felicity in his four- 

 teenth idyl. Fable, too, was busy with the bird ; and the 

 lamentable story of the daughters of Pandion was cele- 

 brated, both in prose and poetry. ^ 



Pendebant pennis, quanim petit altera silvas 

 Altera tecta subit.* 



The concluding frightful scene, which reminds one of 

 the horrible revenge of Titus Andronicus, with the addi- 

 tional coup de theatre of Philomela throwing the head 

 of Itylus on the table at the conclusion of the revolting 

 repast, and the subsequent change of Tereus into a 

 hoopoe, Itylus into a pheasant, Philomela into a nightin- 

 gale, and her sister into a swallow, — 



Manibiis Procne pectus signata cruentis^f 



* 0^^d, Met am. 6. 

 t Georg. iv. Ovid also takes advantage of the plumage to help 

 the fable : — 



Nee adhuc de pectore csedis 

 Excessere nota3, signataque sanguine pluma est. 



