OUR FOREST CHORISTERS. 187 



from an instinct of delicacy, since wood-birds are not 

 wont to use the same nest a second time, even if they rear 

 several broods in a season. 



8. In comparing modes of flight, the most surprising, 

 of course, is that of the swallow tribe, remarkable not 

 merely for its velocity, but for the amazing boldness and 

 instantaneousness of the angles it makes ; so that eminent 

 European mechanicians have speculated in vain upon the 

 methods used in its locomotion, and prizes have been of- 

 fered, by mechanical exhibitions, to him who could best 

 explain it. With impetuous dash, they sweep through our 

 perilous streets, these wild hunters of the air, "so near, 

 and yet so far " ; they bathe flying, and flying they feed 

 their young. In my immediate vicinity, the chimney- 

 swallow is not now common, nor the sand-swallow ; but 

 the cliff-swallow, that strange emigrant from the far West, 

 the barn-swallow, and the white-breasted species, are abun- 

 dant, together with the purple martin. 



9. I know no prettier sight than a bevy of these bright 

 little creatures, met from a dozen different farm-houses to 

 picnic at a wayside pool, splashing and fluttering, with 

 their long wings expanded like butterflies, keeping poised 

 by a constant hovering motion, just tilting upon their feet, 

 which scarcely touch the moist ground. You will seldom 

 see them actually perch oh anything less airy than some 

 telegraph-wire ; but, when they do alight, each will make 

 chatter enough for a dozen, as if all the rushing hurry of 

 the wings had passed into the tongue. 



10. Between the swiftness of the swallow and the state- 



liness of the birds of prey, the whole range of bird motion 



seems included. The long wave of a hawk's wings seems 



almost to send a slow vibration through the atmosphere, 



tolling upon the eye as yon distant bell upon the ear. I 



never was more impressed with the superior dignity of 



these soarings than in observing a bloodless contest in the 

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