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THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS. 
" In selfish pleasure's wild career, 
Shall teach me still to shew, 
That pity's voice, like thee, I hear, 
And stoop to others^ woe. 
" To raise the fall'n, in sorrow's hour, 
To save a sinking friend — 
And when to save exceeds my pow'r, 
Support and comfort lend.'^ 
I hope my readers are, by this time, disposed to 
acknowledge that the poor swallow is not unworthy a 
place among the more favoured of the feathered race. 
The illustrative drawing was taken from one I had 
been watching in all his evolutions round a piece of 
water in the neighbourhood of Carshalton, last au- 
tumn, where, seated upon a bank, at a little distance, 
I had vainly endeavoured to follow, with my eye^ 
his rapidly-reiterated turnings ; but, finding my head 
turn giddy, I soon gave up the attempt. As suffi- 
cient has already been said in praise of this migrator, 
and many may, perhaps, wish him to wing his way 
to other regions, I will dismiss him, in the words of 
the poet — - 
