xi Departing Birds : an Epilogue 275 



same course. They refused the sea -passage, and 

 turned inland and northwards. The nature of the 

 ground I was on prevented my watching them in 

 this direction to any distance ; and I could only 

 stand there and wish that some kind wizard would 

 turn me into a Swallow for but one hour, that I 

 might follow in their track, and learn something of 

 the ways and the minds of these little travellers. 

 But it was a fair guess that, having refused the sea 

 once, they would hug the land for some distance 

 at least. 



The sun had now come out, and I sat down to 

 enjoy it while waiting for a third company of 

 Swallows. All the birds I saw that morning, I 

 may say, were Swallows, not Martins; and all of 

 which I had a good view were young birds, so far 

 as I could judge by their tails. Presently another 

 series of ghostly little forms came gliding over me, 

 and I at once jumped up and kept the binocular 

 steadily on them as they went eastwards. But this 

 company did not return inland as the others had 

 done ; like the party I had watched two days before, 

 they rose in the air when they neared the point, and 

 circling higher and ever higher, as if observing and 

 considering, they at length began to disappear over 

 the sea. I scrambled over a high loose stone wall, 

 at the risk of breaking my bones, in order to reach a 

 higher point and keep them longer in sight ; and then 



