THE SWALLOW 



19 



notes at early dawn when every other feath- 

 ered songster is silent. They leave their 

 warm nests and ascend aloft to the infinite 

 spaces of heaven; they descend with dizzy 

 haste; they whirl; they- soar; they skim 

 the low grasses and the shining surfaces of 

 lake or stream ; and with noisy cries they 



meet, they separate, they dart away — and 

 then they turn to meet again, ten, twenty, a 

 hundred times — now appearing, now disap- 

 pearing like flashes of lightning. They send 

 out shrill cries as they whirl and soar, and if 

 they stop for a moment, impatient of rest, 

 their trills and quavers sound like questions 

 and answers in a brisk conversation. 



Swallows, besides being on good terms 



