;i 88 IN FLIGHT TIME 
his perch and tries to hustle a weaker one from its 
place, he is quickly brought to book by one of those 
older ones, so that, on the whole, it is a very orderly 
gathering. The coming and the going of swallows is 
certainly a very remarkable matter for consideration, 
for they come and go by twos and threes, in small 
companies and in large ones, to fill their accustomed 
haunts by degrees ; quitting them in the same 
gradual fashion. 
My daily avocation compelling me to be about 
all over the country in every sort of weather, foul as 
well as fair, I see many an incident which might 
otherwise have escaped observation. In the early 
part of April, this present year, 1892, business took 
me through some fine park-lands just then lit up by 
the sun. When I reached the centre of these a mob 
of swallows, some fifty or sixty of them there were, 
dropped down from their migrating flight to settle on 
the park railings. They were in splendid plumage, 
and apparently right glad that their journey was over, 
for they twittered, broke out into full song, caressed 
each other, and preened their feathers, fluttering over 
across the road and back to the rails again. So tired 
were the beautiful, innocent creatures that they allowed 
me to walk along the whole length of their line, and to 
look at them at a distance of barely six feet from this 
