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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