Professional and Amateur. 119 



are infinitely superior to man. We are supposed to 

 admire skilfully adapted means to ends, and from this 

 stand-point the swallow may be compared to a most 

 delicate chronometer and man to a steam-engine. 

 So prominent are these birds in every landscape, so 

 fearless and inoffensive, that, as all birds should have 

 done, they have really gained an entrance into man's 

 affections, and I think no bird figures to more ad- 

 vantage in our literature. Not^vithstanding this, I 

 have seen a woman — or what I took to be one — 

 walking unconcernedly on a fashionable street, in 

 broad daylight, with the skin of a swallow on her hat ! 

 Of course I could say nothing to her, but I swore at 

 her shadow as she passed. To make impossible such 

 a thing as the wearing of bird-skins is a task that 

 statesmen might take up without any reflection on 

 the dignity of their calling. There is a Department 

 of Agriculture and departmental ornithologists, to- 

 gether with feeble protests and pretty pictures, much 

 wisdom and more fruitless discussion ; all this in the 

 capital of the nation, while throughout the length 

 and breadth of the land bird-murder goes on un- 

 ceasingly. I have heard of a clergyman who shot 

 nuthatches for his dinner. From the sermons of 

 such men pray to be delivered. 



We not only have plenty of swallows, but they 

 are of different kinds, so that the characteristics of 

 each species are ever before us. We draw an in- 

 vidious distinction when we say that the bank-swallow 

 is prettier than the cliff-swallow, or that the white- 

 belly is more trim than the marten, or otherwise set 



