454 
BIRD-LIFE. 
The Swallow is regarded, by almost all nations of the 
earth, with scarcely less interest than the Stork. The 
German looks upon this bird as a bird of blessing, because 
it will never take up its abode under a godless roof; it is 
also, in his eyes, the type of peace :— 
“ Come summer visitant, attach 
To my reed-roof your nest of clay, 
And let my ear your music catch 
Low twittering underneath the thatch 
At the gray dawn of day. 
As fables tell, an Indian sage 
The Hindustani woods among, 
Could in his desert hermitage, 
As if ’twere mark’d in written page, 
Translate the wild bird’s song. 
I wish I did his power possess 
That I might learn fleet bird, from thee, 
What our vain systems only guess, 
And know from what wild wilderness 
You came across the sea.” 
The Arabs call it the “ Bird of Paradise : ” to it alone the 
gates of Eden—which the avenging angel, on account of 
the sins of man, had closed against the remaining animals, 
and guarded with a flaming sword—are open. The 
Spanish proverb says : “ He who kills a Swallow murders 
his own mother.” The savage of North America who, 
like the Bedouin, builds his hut of boughs—here to-day 
and there to-morrow,—also hangs up an empty gourd-shell 
on one of the neighbouring trees to serve as a nesting- 
place for the Swallow who may visit him; and it is only 
the Italian who—well, never mind, we will refer to this 
later: why disturb a bright and pleasant picture by 
introducing what is harsh and disagreeable ? These 
birds, to whose name I gladly attach the qualification 
“ holy,” entered in unto man to dwell with him ; doubtless 
