

SPRIGHT OF THE SWALLOWS 



any of them. First, his dress and figure the rich 

 colours, and the gloss on them, for the swallow is 

 surely the most polished of all our small birds. Seen 

 in repose on the garden tree, where he sings a great 

 deal in these days, the swallow, taking him from the 

 head downward, ends in a fine point like some sharp 

 instrument. The swallow is the soul of shapeliness. 

 His is the bird-form divine. Then his song. He 

 is the only musician in the group. I disagree en- 

 tirely with those who belittle the song of the swallow. 

 It may be without a note of passion or triumph ; but 

 it has the quality of sweetness ; it is gentle, affable ; 

 whilst running through it is a thread of tune. The 

 swallow, not the garden warbler, should have been 

 called the babillard. I have referred before to his 

 endurance as a singer. He is sometimes wonderful 

 in this, rivalling the breathless half-hour songs of 

 some sedge warbler at dead of night in May and 

 June. But the notes of which this song of the dawn 

 is made are multitudinously thick as those of any 

 skylark, packed far closer together and far more of 

 them than in the song of the sedge bird. This 

 is a performance of the dawn only in July or 

 August. Later in the day, when many insects are 

 a-wing, the swallow has not time for such lengthy 

 songs ; then we have instead " short swallow flights 

 of song." 



