THE SWALLOWS. 93 



swallow take four, in less than a quarter of a 

 minute, that were descending to the water. 



POIET. I delight in this living landscape ! 

 The swallow is one of my favourite birds, 

 and a rival of the nightingale; for he cheers 

 my sense of seeing as much as the other 

 does my sense of hearing. He is the glad 

 prophet of the year the harbinger of the 

 best season : he lives a life of enjoyment 

 amongst the loveliest forms of nature : winter 

 is unknown to him ; and he leaves the green 

 meadows of England in autumn, for the myrtle 

 and orange groves of Italy, and for the palms 

 of Africa: he has always objects of pursuit, 

 and his success is secure. Even the beings 

 selected for his prey are poetical, beautiful, 

 and transient. The ephemerae are saved by 

 his means from a slow and lingering death in 

 the evening, and killed in a moment, when 

 they have known nothing of life but pleasure. 

 He is the constant destroyer of insects, 

 the friend of man ; and, with the stork and the 

 ibis, may be regarded as a sacred bird. His 

 instinct, which gives him his appointed sea- 



