SWIFTS, SWALLOWS AND MARTINS 



hiding-places. The rustic mind, however, 

 preferred, and in some unsophisticated dis- 

 tricts still prefers, the ancient belief in diving 

 swallows, and no weight of evidence, however 

 carefully presented, would shake it in its 

 creed. Fortunately this eccentric view of the 

 swallow's habits brings no harm to the bird 

 itself, and may thus be tolerated as an in- 

 nocuous indulgence on the part of those who 

 prefer this fiction to the even stranger truth. 



87 



