Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/50

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The Swallows and Martins are distinguished from the Swifts by the following characters:—the toes are directed, as in most Passerine birds, three forward and one backward; the feet are slender and comparatively weak, as are also the claws; the tail consists of twelve feathers, and is for the most part forked, often to a great extent; the wings have the first quill-feather the longest.

The Chimney Swallow (Hirundo rustica, .) with its burnished upper plumage of steel-blue, its forehead and throat of chestnut-red, and its long forked tail, is well known; and its headlong flights and rapid evolutions as it plays over the stream or rushes through the streets of the town, are hailed as the attendants of summer. Who does not know the pleasant associations of the announcement, "The Swallows are come!" "The Swallow," says Sir Humphrey Davy, "is one of my favourite birds, and a rival of the Nightingale; for he glads my sense of seeing as much as the other does my sense of hearing. He is the joyous 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 plains of Africa."

In the "Natural History of Selborne," the economy of this, as well as of our other species of Hirundinidæ, is detailed in an interesting manner. The Chimney Swallow usually arrives in this