sf 
188 THE NATURAL HISTORY 

It a. defcends, and fails fmoothly, vel tae 
pidly through the air, without the leaft appearance 
of effort,’ = “a 
It feels itfelf in its proper es er as it 
glides through the yielding expanfe in every di 
rection, by a cheerful twittering note, exprefles 
its felicity. 
One time it purfues the fitting infeas, follows 
ing their oblique, and irregular dire&tion, with 
the utmoft facility, quitting one to chace another 
and in its flight {eizing perhaps a third. Somee 
times the Swallow fkims lightly over the furface 
of the fields, and of the water, to feize the in- i 
fe€is, which the rain, or moifture have attracteds,, : 
~ 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 die 
: reGtion. It feems to defcribe in the air, a change- 
able, tracklefs, labyrinth ; the paths of which 
crofs, interweave, diverge, approach, conn 


combine, rife, defcend, lofe themfelves, and ap-_ i 
_ pear again to interfect, and entangle one another 
in a thoufand ways, too complicated to be pidturel 
to the eye, by the art of drawing, or to the ima 
gination, by the powers of verbal defcription. 

