_Hal._ While we have been conversing, the May-flies, which were in such
quantities, have become much fewer; and I believe the reason is, that
they have been greatly diminished by the flocks of swallows which
everywhere pursue them. I have seen a single swallow take four, in less
than a quarter of a minute, that were descending to the water.
_Poict._ I delight in this living landscape! The swallow is one of my
favorite birds, and a rival of the nightingale; for he cheers my sense
of seeing as much as the other does my sense of hearing. He is the glad
prophet of the year—the harbinger of the best season: he lives a life of
enjoyment among the loveliest forms of Nature. Winter is unknown to him;
and he leaves the green meadows of England, in autumn, for the myrtle
and orange groves of Italy, and for the palms of Africa. He has always
objects of pursuit, and his success is secure. Even the beings selected
for his prey are poetical, beautiful, and transient. The ephemeræ are
saved by his means from a slow and lingering death in the evening, and
killed in a moment, when they have known nothing of life but pleasure.
He is the constant destroyer of insects—the friend of man; and, with the
stork and ibis, may be regarded as a sacred bird. This instinct, which
gives him his appointed seasons, and teaches him always when and where
to move, may be regarded as flowing from a Divine Source; and he belongs
to the Oracles of Nature, which speak the awful and intelligible
language of a present Deity.