BIRDS IN THE CALENDAR 



the score of cleanliness, most of us welcome 

 them back each year, if only for the sake of 

 the glad season of their stay. If, moreover, it 

 is a question of choice between these untiring 

 travellers resting in our eaves and the stay- 

 at-home starling or sparrow, the choice will 

 surely fall on the first every time. 



The swift is the largest and most rapid in 

 its flight, and its voice has a penetrating 

 quality lacking in the notes of the rest. 

 Swifts screaming in headlong flight about a 

 belfry or up and down a country lane are the 

 embodiment of that sheer joy of life which, 

 in some cases with slender reason, we associ- 

 ate peculiarly with the bird- world. Probably, 

 however, these summer migrants are as 

 happy as most of their class. On the wing 

 they can have few natural enemies, though 

 one may now and again be struck down by a 

 hawk ; and they alight on the ground so 

 rarely as to run little risk from cats or weasels, 

 while the structure and position of their nests 

 alike afford effectual protection for the eggs 

 and young. Compared with that of the 

 majority of small birds, therefore, their 

 existence should be singularly happy and free 

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