I met with a beautiful passage about migratory birds in a book I was reading lately. The writer says, "Were they planets revolving round the sun, their arrival could hardly be more accurately calculated by the astronomer…. The little birds are guided in their flight through the waste, lone wilderness of the sky, and over wide seas, without a compass or a map or a path, by His counsel and will. And they obey that guidance without the slightest inclination to swerve from it or seek a way of their own….
"Migratory birds passing from Africa to Europe over the sea, often alight on ships bound in that direction. Not unfrequently ship-captains tell us that they have seen birds of prey, hawks, and owls, appearing on the masts on such occasions in the company of swallows, goldfinches, and chaffinches; and yet the cruel birds never touched the innocent ones. The migratory instinct seems to subdue for a season the predatory instinct."
I want to tell you more about swallows, and especially a true but sad story of a tame one; but first we will speak of one more group, the Swimming-birds. You may have often noticed a duck's foot, and seen how the "web," or skin between the toes, can be folded up like a fan; or spread out, when the bird is swimming; Geese, Swans, Sea-gulls, the beautiful great Albatross, all these and a great many more of this family; they have a kind of water-wing, which cleaves its way through the streams, and most of them can also fly, although they are heavy birds. I have seen a flock of grey geese sailing on the sea, and the same flock at sunset coming home by a quicker way, looking like dark specks against the evening sky; but it is only wild geese that will fly so far.
Now then, we have had five groups. Let us count them. Birds of Prey, Perching birds, Scratching birds, Wading birds, Swimming birds, and I think I must add one more; for the Passerine, or Sparrow group includes most of the small birds, such as blackbirds and thrushes, nightingales and swallows, larks and magpies, linnets and humming-birds, and I cannot tell how many more "feathered fowl."
[Illustration: FISHING.]
Our story of a tame swallow must follow. There are four kinds of swallows—the Swift, the Chimney-swallow, the House-martin, and the Sand-martin; they all look much alike when on the wing, but there are differences, especially in the sort of nest which they build. The house-martin makes its nest of mud, lined with grass or feathers, against the side of a house, and there lays its beautiful white eggs.
A pair of martins built their cosy nest one summer beneath the eaves of a house in the country, just under the window of one of the bedrooms. Swallows rear two broods every season, and one brood was reared successfully in this nest, but the second was not so fortunate. Late in September—and you know the swallows are off to Africa in October—a servant found a poor little shivering bird on the steps. It was plain that it had tried to fly from the nest, with its brothers and sisters, but had not been strong enough. The poor birdie seemed almost dead when it was picked up, but in the family there was a lady who loved "all things both great and small," and she fed the tiny martin, and made a bed for it in a work basket lined with wool. She was delighted when she saw it tuck its head under its wing, puff out its little feathers, and settle itself to sleep in her basket as cosily as if it had been at home in its parents' nest, and she began to think that she might be able to keep this little deserted bird in an English home while all the other swallows had gone over sea for the winter.
I need not tell you that the little martin gave plenty of trouble and anxiety in his rearing; but at last he got on so well that he was allowed to go out in the garden, and sit upon his mistress's hand, while he feasted on any spider, gnat, or fly which was caught for him. It must have been a pretty sight to see the fondness of this pet bird for the kind friend who had saved its life. He could not bear to be away from her, but would sit on her shoulder while she was at work or writing, and sometimes nestle under her chin; tiresome enough in his tricksy ways of pulling at her thread and snatching at her paper, but still always borne with, because he was such a pet.
One day when his mistress was going out for a long walk, and intended to leave her bird behind, he insisted on going too. And go he did, perched upon her finger; but on the way he became so clamorously hungry that she had to take him into a butcher's shop, and get some meat for his dinner.
She often wondered how long he would stay with her. The swallows had not yet gone; and sometimes he would look up and see crowds of them skimming through the air, and darting about overhead. He would watch them, even call to them and answer their wild cry, then sweep round the room in imitation of their rapid flight; but always came back again to his old place on her shoulder. At last, while there were still flies to be caught; be became so grown up as to begin to catch them for himself, though he had had no parent-bird to teach him; but still he was a tame swallow, liking to have his head stroked, and enjoying his morning bath like any canary.