258 
HIRUNDINID/E. 
long and gloomy winter. The arrival of the first Swallow 
is hailed by all: it brings with it a thousand recollections 
of “ sunny skies and cloudless weather/' of days spent in 
the open fields, and of pic-nics in the deep green woods. 
On its coming, the trees have been wont to put forth 
their brightest foliage, the meadows have been strewn 
with flowers, the butterfly and the beetle have once more 
come forth from their winter's sleep, and “ the woods its 
welcome sing." 
I never see these dear birds gathering in the autumn, 
ere they take their departure for sunnier skies, or watch 
the last lingering few which the bright days of October 
have induced to tarry behind the rest, without regret 
that they are going to leave us—without feeling that I 
am about to lose my friends, the companions of all my 
solitary summer rambles, or without wishing a heartfelt 
blessing on their distant way. 
Their lives are not only altogether harmless, but every 
hour that they live is spent in doing us good, and to an 
extent of which we can have but little conception; and 
brutal and void of feeling, and ungrateful to that Great 
Being who made them for our good, must that man be, 
who can, in mere wantonness, destroy and carelessly cast 
from him, to rot upon the ground, the beautiful form 
which, but for his thoughtlessness, had been soaring above 
his head full of life and enjoyment? Would that some 
superstitious dread predicted evil to their destroyers; or 
that some reverential feeling, or gratitude for their ser¬ 
vices, would protect them from evil, as the ibis of old, 
the stork of Holland, the purple martin of the United 
States, or even the hero of nursery tales, our own familiar 
robin-red-breast! 
It is now well known that the Swallows will return to 
the same place, and rear their young ones in the same 
