3 83 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
It rifes, defcends, and fails fmoothly, yet ra¬ 
pidly through the air, without the leaft appearance 
of effort. 
It feels itfelf in its proper clement, and as it 
glides through the yielding expanfe in every di- 
rediion, by a cheerful twittering note, exprefles 
its felicity. 
One time it purfues the flitting infects, follow¬ 
ing their oblique, and irregular direction, with 
the utmofi: facility, quitting one to chace another, 
and in its flight feizing perhaps a third. Some¬ 
times the Swallow fkims lightly over the furface 
of the fields, and of the water, to feize the in¬ 
fects, which the rain, or moifture have attracted j 
fometimes too it efcapes itfelf from the impetuous 
attempt of a bird of prey, by the ready quicknefs of 
its movements. Always matter of its flight, how¬ 
ever rapid, in an inftant it can change its di¬ 
rection. It feems to defcribe in the air, a change¬ 
able, tracklefs, labyrinth; the paths of which 
crofs, interweave, diverge, approach, confound, 
combine, rife, defcend, lofe themfelves, and ap¬ 
pear again to interfeet, and entangle one another 
in a thouland ways, too complicated to be pictured 
to the eye, by the art of drawing, or to he ima¬ 
gination, by the powers of verbal defcription. 
The 
