MARCH SWALLOWS 237 



mergansers and golden-eyes in his March 

 journals. 



We were admiring this couple (a couple 

 only in the looser sense of the word, for both 

 birds were drakes), when all at once some 

 small far-away object " swam into my ken." 

 " A swallow ! " said I, and even as I spoke 

 a second one came into the field of the glass. 

 Yes, there they were, two white-breasted 

 swallows, sailing about over the meadows on 

 the 23d of March. How unspeakably beau- 

 tiful they looked, their lustrous blue-green 

 backs with the bright sun shining on them ! 

 The date must constitute a " record," I as- 

 sured my companion. Once before, at least, 

 I had seen swallows in March, but that, I 

 felt certain, was on one of the last days 

 of the month. Strange that such creatures 

 should have ventured so far northward thus 

 early. If Gilbert White could see them, he 

 would be more firmly convinced than ever 

 that swallows "lay themselves up in holes 

 and caverns, and do, insect-like and bat-like, 

 come forth at mild times, and then retire 

 again to their latebras." For my own part, 

 not being able to accept this doctrine, I con- 



