40 BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



the swallow's wide-gaping mouth is sticky inside, so that 

 everything it catches it holds, and in this way is spared inter- 

 minable miles of journeying. To see them at their best is when 

 a hawk passes, and, for sheer mischief, the swallows chase it. 



The hawk is flying, as hawks can fly, with great swiftness ; 

 but look at the velocity of the swallows, which fly round and 

 round the hawk as it goes ! They hover over it, loiter by the 

 side of it, make excursions ahead of it, and come back, mock 

 it, in fact, as if it were an owl, or as hares might mock and 

 mob a tortoise. And the hawk never even pretends to 

 chase one of the swallows, but goes doggedly on its way, as 

 fast as it can go, to the cover of the wood. To see the 

 swallow at its worst is upon the ground : there it is a poor 

 thing indeed, and from the shortness of its legs and the 

 length of its wings, has to shuffle along, rather than walk. 



But it does not often condescend to walk on the ground. 

 When it alights, to knead the plaster for its nest at a puddle's 

 edge, or for any other purpose, it springs up into the air 

 from the spot on which it settled. And its nest once built, it 

 has no reason for coming to the ground at all. It does so 

 from choice sometimes, where it suspects insects are con- 

 gregated, or sometimes to drink, but, as a rule, it both 

 eats and drinks on the wing. When it rests, it is on a 

 house-roof, a railing, or dead branch, and often when thus 

 seated it sings a very sweet, simple little song, loud enough 

 to puzzle the passer-by, who can hear but not see the 



