The Birds’ Calendar 
the morsels of food scattered on the water and 
dexterously seized in their flight. This species is 
easily distinguished from all the others by the 
peculiar tail, of which the outermost feathers are 
very much the longest. Sometimes mingled 
with them are the bank swallows, not steel-blue 
above, like the barn swallows, but dull brown. 
None of the swallows have a song, but their 
feelings effervesce in lively clinking notes that 
are not unmusical. They are in less need of a 
song than most other birds, for they can work 
off their feelings through their dashing and tire- 
less flight. 
If one were asked to explain in a word the 
essential fascination of bird-study, he would 
probably say it is largely comprised in a bird’s 
intensity of life. Even its song finds half the 
essence of its charm in this. It is manifested 
not only in its restlessness as it darts from twig 
to twig, and from tree to tree, not only in its 
rushing and bewildering flights, coursing hither 
and thither, or dropping like the eagle and hawk 
with almost inconceivable rapidity from a dizzy 
height to the ground, not only in its rapturous 
song in which it seems to ‘‘ pour forth its soul 
in harmony,’’ but even in its quieter moments, 
as you detect its quick breathing, the keen, 
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