54 LOVES MEINIE. 



possible that the weariness of swallows at sea 

 may depend much more on fasting than flying. 

 Captain (or Admiral ?) Sir Charles Wager says 

 that " one spring-time, as he came into sound- 

 ings in the English Channel, a great flock of 

 swallows came and settled on all his rigging; 

 every rope was covered ; they hung on one 

 another like a swarm of bees; even the decks 

 were filled with them. They seemed almost 

 famished and spent, and were only feathers 

 and bone ; but, being recruited with a night's 

 rest, took their flight in the morning." 



51. Now I detain you on this point some- 

 what, because it is intimately connected with 

 a more important one. I told you we should 

 learn from the swallow what a wing was. 

 Few other birds approach him in the beauty 

 of it, or apparent power. And yet, after all 

 this care taken about it, he gets tired ; and 

 instead of flying, as we should do in his 

 place, all over the world, and tasting the 

 flavour of the midges in every marsh which 

 the infinitude of human folly has left to breed 

 gnats instead of growing corn, — he is of all 

 birds, characteristically, except when he ab- 

 solutely can't help it, the stayer at home; 



