THROUGH THE YEAR 79 



among them. Flight in the one class then strikes 

 us as a different thing from flight in the other. 



The swallow in the air is in its element. The 

 sparrow in the air is, at most, but half in its element. 



The telegraph wires by the stream is the place to 

 watch these lovely little swallow and martin gather- 

 ings in mid- July. The first broods of the house 

 martins are already as strong on the wing as the old 

 birds ; and they and the sand martins and swallows 

 sit in rows on the wires, and in preening themselves 

 outstretch their long, pointed wings, and twitter 

 and chase one another in a charming way. It is 

 one of the best bird sights of later summer. 



SEA AND SUNSET 



I wrote of the whirl of the nesting puffins in the 

 blue and gold of a western sunset. In richness and 

 immense area of two strong colours the blue so 

 material in appearance, the gold so ethereal 

 such a scene as this cannot be surpassed, if it can be 

 matched, by sunsets along our English coasts. 

 But one may turn east and often find among the 

 bays and headlands of the south coast of England 

 sea sunsets which match and surpass that one 

 in variety of colour and light, and in the quick 

 change and mixing of colours and lights. 



I watched one of these changing sunsets at Durley 

 Chine after a cloudy day. The sun, breaking 

 powerfully through the cloud rack, filled the west 

 with a wonderful golden smoke, which spread and 

 spread over the purple Purbeck hills, at whose sea. 



