OUTDOORS 



of the most common of the family. He often 

 chatters to himself as he wings his way over 

 a barn-yard, and his long, sweeping curves 

 are a beautiful example of ^impossibilities of 

 aerial motion. One habit of the swallows is 

 to dip to ponds or running water as they pass 

 above it, and this has suggested to one writer 

 the figure: 



" Short, swallow-flights of song that dip 

 Their wings in tears and then away." 



The chimney-swallow, which is really a 

 swift, is usually abroad when the swallows 

 are circling about the roofs, and its erratic, 

 scallopy movements and its shrill twittering 

 as it cuts through the air make it easily 

 known from the true swallows. The perfec- 

 tion of swallow flight is found when the birds 

 are flying around some bit of meadow-land 

 along a river where small ponds are scat- 

 tered about. When sunshine and shadow 

 blend in such places, and the birds dip to the 

 water and away, with their glossy breasts 

 dripping, each curve of their wings is a lyric, 

 written on impalpable air, the subtle poetry 

 of wind and sun. 



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