SWIFTS, SWALLOWS AND MARTINS 
WHEN the trout-fisherman sees the first 
martins and swallows dipping over 
the sward of the water-meadows and 
skimming the surface of the stream in hot 
pursuit of such harried water-insects as have 
escaped the jaws of greedy fish, he knows 
that summer is coming in. The signs of spring 
have been evident in the budding hedgerows 
for some weeks. The rooks are cawing in the 
elms, the cuckoo's note has been heard in 
the spinney for some time before these little 
visitors pass in jerky flight up and down the 
valley. Then, a little later, come the swifts 
the black and screaming swifts which, 
though learned folk may be right in sundering 
them utterly from their smaller travelling 
companions from the sunny south, will always 
in the popular fancy be associated with the 
rest. Colonies of swifts, swallows, and martins 
are a dominant feature of English village life 
during the warm months ; and though there 
are fastidious folk who take not wholly 
culpable exception to their little visitors on 
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