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lives a life of enjoyment amongst the loveliest forms 
of nature—the green meadows of England, the myrtle 
and orange groves of Italy, and the palms of Africa. 
. . . . He is the constant destroyer of insects— 
the friend of man ; and, with the stork and ibis, may 
be regarded as a sacred bird. The instinct which 
tells him what to do may be regarded as flowing 
from a Divine source; he belongs to the oracles of 
nature, and speaks in intelligent language of a present 
Deity.” 
In the Animal World, of Nov., 1889, appeared 
the following:—“The swallow Hirundo is a check 
upon flies ; they failed recently, on account of their 
reduced numbers, but if they were altogether absent 
the air would soon be so full of flies that we should 
be unable to see or breathe, and vegetation would 
be nearly destroyed. There was recently a plague 
of flies in Lincolnshire. Mr. Lowe writes : ‘ this 
plague is unprecedented,’ but it is solely owing to 
the loss of swallows last spring.” 
Do you know, ladies, how these birds are killed? 
One way is that when they leave Africa on their 
journey to this land they rest at a certain spot on 
the coast of France. On that spot, to please your 
taste, wires have been set up connected with electric 
batteries; then, when the birds are resting by 
hundreds on these wires, a strong electric current is 
sent through and the birds drop down dead in heaps. 
They are then thrown into baskets and prepared for 
the ornamentation of your dresses. 
Again, The Gardener's Magazine says : “ The 
wagt.ails afford a peculiar example of the indirect 
usefulness of small birds. The liver-fluke that so 
often devastates our flocks and herds begins its 
.career in the body of a water-snail. In browsing on 
marshy pastures, the cattle and sheep take with their 
herbage a considerable number of snails, and conse¬ 
quently a considerable number of embryonic entozoa, 
or say, incipient flukes. Amongst thousands of flukes 
