CHAPTER LII 

 THE SWIFT 



THE largest of the swallow family is the swift, or " Develin," 

 as he is locally called a big, black, mysterious bird, that 

 arrives at the end of May, last of all the swallows, and is 

 to be seen flying high or low, according to the weather, but 

 always to windward, always to windward, foretelling bad 

 or hefty weather or rain, according to local tradition; for 

 the swift is rarely to be seen in the Broadlands when the 

 weather is fine and settled; indeed, they say Id bas that 

 they all go away somewhere. Whether that be so I know 

 not, but when you do see the develin there, he is pretty 

 active, especially when fighting in spring, for they are good 

 fighters, having many a good round over a poor moth's body, 

 shrieking their shrill cries all the time, flying up and down 

 the welkin, but rarely in very large parties. Sometimes one 

 bird will be seen beating to windward, sometimes twenty, 

 but once I heard a large flock right up in the sky above me, 

 almost in the clouds. Can it be that in fine still weather they 

 go up so high that we do not see them ? 



The swift is a mysterious bird in the Broadlands, who is 

 said to nest in steeples, but his nest I have never yet found, 

 and the little I know is that he is there one day and absent 

 another. But they are always plentiful during hot summers. 

 Indeed, all the swallow family fill us with the sense that they 

 are birds of passage ; they always seem on the move here 

 one day, there another for ever travelling and eating and 

 drinking ; a mere phantasmagoria of bright and restless 

 atoms, for ever flickering athwart the skies. Such is the 



