WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



into some limpid lake as they sweep by to sip a 

 taste of water or cleanse their dirty coats. It seems 

 strange, then, that birds who sustain the unremit- 

 ting exertion of a flight scarcely less than one hun- 

 dred miles an hour in speed, during the whole of 

 a long summer's day, should not be thought ca- 

 pable of the transition from England to Africa. 

 However, at that time it was not well understood 

 what long-continued flight small birds actually do 

 make, as, for instance, from our coast to Ireland, 

 or from Alaska to Hawaii. 



The bank-swallow is not a musical bird, a faint, 

 squeaking chirrup being all its voice can accom- 

 plish; nor is it a handsome bird — simply sooty 

 brown above, white beneath, with a brown breast. 

 To its grace of motion and charming home life we 

 attribute that in it w^hich attracts us. 



Although probably the least numerous of all the 

 swallows, they do not seem so, because of the great 

 companies which are to be seen together wherever 

 they are to be found at all; and because, lead- 

 ing a more sequestered life, they are not usually 

 brought into direct comparison with house-martins 

 and chimney-swifts. Eminently social in their 

 habits, they congregate not only at the time of 

 migration (then, indeed, least of all), and in the 



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