BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



" Sival/ows obeying tJie South Sttmmers caliy 



Keats. 



Voice alone does not make a bird a favourite, or what 

 could we say for the swallow, that has so slight a song, 

 and yet, excepting the robin. Is 



" privileged above tlie rest 

 Of all the birds as man's familiar guest." 



In the old days Rome loved the swallows as the spirits of 

 dead children revisiting their homes, and Rhodes welcomed 

 the bird's return with public song and canticles of thanks. 

 And long before Rome and Rhodes, men said that it was 

 the swallow that brought Noah back the leaf ; and the 

 swallow, when Adam and Eve were separated after the Flood, 

 brought our first parents together again, by telling Adam 

 in Serendib that Eve was on the Red Sea coast. In later 

 days it Is a sacred bird In all four quarters of Europe : " the 

 bird of consolation " In the North ; " bird of the happy 

 beak" In the South ; " the bird of the hearth " In the West ; 

 and "the bird of God" In the East, Apart from all this, 

 "the clime-changing swallow," slipt from the secret hand of 

 Providence, that comes all the way from Southern Africa 

 to hunt our May-flies, Is one of the oracles of Nature and 

 the joyous evangelist of happy Summer. 



