those who pause to reflect on the incessant activity displayed by
these birds the livelong day. So rarely indeed do they alight that
country folk gravely deny them the possession of feet, and it is in the
last degree improbable that a bird of such feverish alertness could
dispense with its night's rest. No one who has watched swifts, swallows
and martins on the wing can fail to be struck by the extraordinary
judgment with which these untiring birds seem to shave the arches of
bridges, gateposts, and other obstacles in the way of their flight by so
narrow a margin as continually to give the impression of catastrophe
imminent and inevitable. Their escapes from collision are marvellous;
but the birds are not infallible, as is shown by the untoward fate of a
swallow in Sussex. In an old garden in that county there had for many
years been an open doorway with no door, and through the open space the
swallows had been wont, year after year, to fly to and fro on their
hunting trips. Then came a fateful winter during which a new owner took
it into his head to put up a fresh gate and to keep it locked, and, as
ill luck would have it, he painted it blue, which, in the season of fine
weather, probably heightened the illusion. Back came the happy swallows
to their old playground, and one of the pioneers flew headlong at the
closed gate and fell stunned and dying on the ground, a minor tragedy
that may possibly come as a surprise to those who regard the instincts
of wild birds as unerring.

That the young swallows leave our shores before their elders--late in
August or early in September--is an established fact, and the instinct
which guides them aright over land and sea, without assistance from
those more experienced, is nothing short of amazing. The swifts, last
to come, are also first to go, spending less time in the land of their
birth than either swallows or martins. The fact that an occasional
swallow has been seen in this country during the winter months finds
expression in the adage that "one swallow does not make a summer," and
it was no doubt this occasional apparition that in a less enlightened
age seemed to warrant the extraordinary belief, which still ekes out a
precarious existence in misinformed circles, that these birds, instead
of wintering abroad, retire in a torpid condition to the bottom of lakes
and ponds. It cannot be denied that these waters have occasionally, when
dredged or drained, yielded a stray skeleton o