82 SALMONIA. [THIRD DAY. 



swallow is one of my favourite birds, and a rival of 

 the nightingale : for he cheers 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 ephemera 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 seasons, and 

 teaches him always when and where to move, may be 

 regarded as flowing from a Divine Source; and he 

 belongs to the Oracles of Nature, which speak the 

 awful and intelligible language of a present Deity. 



