Professional and Amateur. 121 



barn-swallow. I love the former because I find it 

 in the flooded meadows, skimming over the wide 

 pastures that are often under water and over which 

 my boat passes. I love it because it is so tame, 

 and twitters in my ear, when I near its nesting- 

 tree, '' IsJiH this jolly f' A far-fetched descrip- 

 tion of its gleesome ditty, perhaps, but then it is 

 always the manner rather than the matter of a bird's 

 song that appeals to us. A white-bellied swallow 



Barn-swallow. 



once alighted on the end of my oar, which I was 

 using as a pole. Such a trivial incident may make 

 no impression on some, which only proves that they 

 are unimaginative and much to be pitied. I have 

 always looked forward to the spring freshet and the 

 white-bellied swallows, and, now that I have found 

 where they nest and that many stay in the marshes 

 all summer, they have become of even greater in- 

 terest. Formerly they seemed to disappear soon 



F II 



