I am thinking of our American swallow. We all know how Gilbert White loved his chimney-swallows—how he loved every creature that flew or crawled about the rectory. Was it an ancient tortoise in the garden? the sheep upon the downs? a brood of birds in the chimney? No matter. Let the creatures manifest never so slight a friendliness for him, let them claim never so little of his protection, and the good rector's heart went out toward them as it might toward children of his own.
But the swallows were White's fondest care. He and his hirundines were inseparable. He thought of them, especially those of the chimney, as members of his household. One can detect almost a father's interest and joy in his notes upon these little birds. Listen to the parent in this bit about the young in Letter XVIII. They are just out of the chimney.
"Where the dams are hawking for flies."
"They play about near the place where the dams are hawking for flies; and when a mouthful is collected, at a certain signal given, the dam and the nestling advance, rising toward each other, and meeting at an angle; the young one all the while uttering such a little quick note of gratitude and complacency that a person must have paid very little regard to the wonders of nature that has not often remarked this feat."
Has anything been written about our swift showing as faithful and sympathetic observation as that? No. He comes and goes without any one, like Gilbert White, being cheered by his twitter or interested in his doings. Perhaps it is because we have so many brighter, sweeter birds about us here; or perhaps our chimneys are higher than those of Selborne Rectory; or maybe we have no Gilbert White over here.
Of course we have no Gilbert White. We have not had time to produce one. The union of man and nature which yields the naturalist of Selborne is a process of time. Our soil and our sympathy are centuries savager than England's. We still look at our lands with the spirit of the ax; we are yet largely concerned with the contents of the gizzards of our birds. Shall the crows and cherry-birds be exterminated? the sparrows transported? the owls and hawks put behind bars? Not until the collectors at Washington pronounce upon these first questions can we hope for a naturalist who will find White's wonders in the chimney-swallow.
These little swifts are not as attractive as song-sparrows. They are sooty—worse than sooty sometimes; their clothes are too tight for them; and they are less musical than a small boy with "clappers." Nevertheless I could ill spare them from my family. They were the first birds I knew, my earliest home being so generous in its chimneys as to afford lodgings to several pairs of them. This summer they again share my fireside, squeaking, scratching, and thundering in the flue as they used to when, real goblins, they came scrambling down to peek and spy at me. I should miss them from the chimney as I should the song-sparrows from the meadow. They are above the grate, to be sure, while I am in front of it; but we live in the same house, and there is only a wall between us.