20 
BIRDS 
wet him. He need fear no cold; for the 
tropics wait upon his wings. He is the 
nearest visible representation of a spirit 
1 know of. He flies ,—the superlative of 
locomotion; the poet in his most auda¬ 
cious dreams dare confer no superior 
power on flesh and blood. Sound and 
odor are no more native to the air than 
is the Swallow. Look at this marvellous 
creature! He can reverse the order of 
the seasons, and almost keep the morning 
or the sunset constantly in his eye, or 
outstrip the west-wind cloud. Does he 
subsist upon air or odor, that he is for¬ 
ever upon the wing, and never deigns to 
pick a seed or crumb from the earth? Is 
he an embodied thought projecetd from 
the brain of some mad poet in the dim 
past, and sent to teach us a higher 
geometry of curves and spirals? See him 
with that feather high in air, dropping it 
and snapping it up again in the very glee 
of superabundant vitality, and in his sud¬ 
den evolutions and spiral gambollings 
seeming'more a creature of the imagina¬ 
tion than of actual sight! 
And, again, their coming and going. 
