330 SWALLOWS. 
even in our midwinters, to send Swallows trooping northward from the orange and 
the cypress of the South; and the uncertain days, when capricious young spring pours 
delicious balm on the wounds of winter, are sure to lure some Swallows on beyond 
their usual bounds, like skirmishers thrown out before the oncome of the host of occu- 
pation. 
“There is concert, too, in the campaigns of the Swallows; they act as if by con- 
sultation, and carry out agreement under leadership. One may witness, in the autumn 
more particularly, before the Swallows leave us, that they gather in noisy thousands, 
still uncertain of their future movements, eager for the council to determine their line of 
march. Great throngs fly aimlessly about, with incessant twittering, or string along 
the lines of telegraph, the eaves of houses, or the combs of cliffs. In all their talk and 
argument, their restlessness and great concern, we see how weighty is the subject that 
occupies their minds; we may fancy all the levity and impulse of the younger heads, 
their lack of sober judgment, the incessant flippancy with which they urge their novel 
schemes, and we may well believe their departure is delayed by wiser tongues of those 
taught by experience to make haste slowly. Days pass, sometimes, in animated debate, 
till delay becomes dangerous. The gathering dissolves, the sinews are strung, no breath 
is wasted now—the coming storm may work its will now, the Swallows have escaped 
its wrath, and are gone to a winter’s revelry in the land where winter’s hand is 
weakened till its touch is scarcely felt. 
“All this, and more that might be written, is no news. Reckless of space, these 
animated time-slaying wings, these mercurial embodiments of buoyancy, have long been 
favored objects of the ornithologist’s speculation. Conspicuous, notorious, familiar as 
they are among all feather-bearers, in the extension of their flights, in the multitudes of 
individuals that twice a year fly past our very face and eyes in going to and from the 
winter-quarters we have learned as well as we have their summer sojourn in our midst 
— with all these attributes, I say, Swallows are prodigies, phenomenal and problemat- 
ical still. Their flights have been closely watched and studied, furnishing large basis 
for our general inductions respecting the whole subject of the migrations of birds. 
Swallows are taken as the typical migrants, whose dates of arrival and departure are 
fixed points in the ornithologist’s calendar, and known factors in the great equation of 
bird’s movements. In short, no birds are better known in all that pertains to their 
regular and normal migrations. 
“Thus, the competent observer in each locality in the United States knows exactly 
when to expect the Swallows, and can predicate their arrival within a few days—the 
probable error being due to advance or retardation of the-season. This local observer 
knows as well how long the birds will stay. Then, those of us who make a business 
of the matter, and supplement our individual observations with the recorded experiences 
of all the rest, in all other countries, trace the movements of the birds into warmer 
parts of America; we map the distribution of each species, and account for every day 
in the lives of Swallows during the period of their absence from our midst. We know 
just where they go and what they do. We know, for instance, that countless thousands 
of White-bellied Swallows disport all winter long in Florida, as bright and active then 
and there as during their summer sojourn in New England. We know that myriads 
