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PICTURES OF BIRD LIFE. 
The Swallow, as may well be imagined, is a universal favourite with the 
poets. Chaucer speaks of 
“The Swalowe, murderer of the beis small,” 
meaning, probably, flies ; for it seems certain that the Swallow will not harm bees 
proper. It leaves this ill character to the titmouse. The Laureate either uses the 
word in the wider sense or believed Virgil against the testimony of practical men, 
for he repeats the calumny in “The Poet’s Song”:— 
“ The Swallow stopt as he hunted the bee.” 
He adds as a pretty touch to the picture of the Sleeping Beauty’s palace :— 
“ Roof-haunting Martins warm their eggs; 
In these, in those the life is stayed.” 
Another pleasant rustic sketch of his depicts a labourer’s cottage— 
“Almost to the Martin-haunted eaves 
A summer burial deep in hollyhocks.” 
Thomson naturally remembers the Swallows in autumn; how 
“Warned of approaching winter, gathered play 
The Swallow-people; and tossed wide around 
O’er the calm sky, in convolution swift, 
The feathered eddy floats; rejoicing once, 
Ere to their wintry slumbers they retire, 
Or rather into warmer climes conveyed, 
With other kindred birds of season, there 
They twitter cheerful, till the vernal months 
Invite them welcome back; for thronging, now 
Innumerous wings are in commotion all.” 
Rogers appeals to every one in the two lines— 
“ The Swallow oft beneath my thatch 
Shall twitter from her clay-built nest.” 
He probably had in his mind Gray’s line— 
“The Swallow twittering from the straw-built shed.” 
Once more Matthew Arnold brings many a happy summer day to remembrance by 
the few words— 
“ Where black-winged Swallows haunt the glittering Thames.” 
These short Swallow-flights of song will serve as samples of innumerable 
images of beauty and peacefulness which these birds have furnished to the poets. 
