238 THE CLERK OF THE WOODS 



tented myself with Americanizing Shake- 

 speare. " Swallows," said I, 



" Swallows that come before the daffodil dares, 

 And take the winds of March with beauty." 



I could hardly recover from my excite- 

 ment, which was renewed an hour afterward 

 when, on the southern causeway, a third 

 bird (or one of the same two) passed near 

 us. But now see how untrustworthy a clerk 

 a man's memory is ! On reaching home I 

 turned at once to my book of dates, and be- 

 hold, it was exactly four years ago to an 

 hour, March 23, 1897, that I saw two white- 

 breasted swallows about a pond here in 

 Wellesley. We had broken no " record," 

 after all. But I imagine the Rev. Gilbert 

 White saying, " Yes, yes ; you will notice that 

 in both cases the birds were seen in the im- 

 mediate neighborhood of water." And there 

 is no doubt that such places are the ones in 

 which to look most hopefully for the first 

 swallows of the year. 



All this time a herring gull, a great 

 beauty in high plumage, was sailing up and 

 down the meadows like a larger swallow. 

 He, too, was one of Thoreau's river friends 





