THE BARN-SWALLOW 



ALEXANDER WILSON 



IN THE United States there are but few persons who are 

 not acquainted with this gay, innocent and active little 

 bird. Indeed the whole tribe are so distinguished from the 

 rest of small birds by their sweeping rapidity of flight, their 

 peculiar aerial evolutions of wing over our fields . and rivers 

 and through our very streets from morning to night, that the 

 light of Heaven itself, the sky, the trees, or any other common 

 objects of nature are not better known than the Swallows. We 

 welcome their first appearance with delight, as the faithful 

 harbingers and companions of flowery spring and ruddy 

 summer; and when after a long, frost-bound and boisterous 

 winter, we hear it announced that "the swallows are come," 

 what a train of ideas are associated with the simple tidings! 



The wonderful activity displayed by these birds forms a 

 striking contrast to the slow habits of most other animals. It 

 may fairly be questioned whether among the whole feathered 

 tribes which Heaven has formed to adorn this part of creation, 

 there be any that, in the same space of time, pass over an 

 equal extent of surface with the Swallow. Let a person take 

 his stand on a fine summer evening by a new-mown field, 

 meadow or river shore for a short time, and, among the 

 numerous individuals of this tribe that flit before him, fix his 

 eye on a particular one, and follow for a while all its circuitous 

 labyrinths, its extensive sweeps, its sudden rapidly-reiterated 

 zigzag excursions, little inferior to the lightning itself, and 



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