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. 
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