While I Was Thinking In This Way A Swallow Alighted On The
Turf, Picked Up A Small White Moth From Among The Short Grass, And Went
Off With It.
In gloomy overcast weather the swallows at the sea-side
frequently alight on the pebbles of the beach to pick up the insects
which will not rise and fly.
Some beaches and sandbanks are much
frequented by insects, and black clouds of them sometimes come drifting
along, striking the face like small hail.
When swallows fly low, just skimming the ground, it is supposed to be a
sign of rain. During the frequent intervals of heavy, overcast weather
which have marked this summer, they might have been observed flying low
for a week together without a spot of rain falling. Chilly air drives
insects downwards, and, indeed, paralyses a great many of them
altogether. It is a fall of temperature, and not wet, that makes the
swallows chase their prey low down. Insects are not much afraid of rain
if it is warm and soft, so that in the midst of showers, if there is
sunshine too, you may see the swallows high in the atmosphere. It is when
they fly low, but just missing the grass, that their wonderful powers of
flight appear. In the air above there are no obstacles, and if you shoot
an arrow it travels to the end of its journey without let or hindrance;
there are no streets there to turn corners, no narrow lanes, no trees or
hedges. When the shallow comes down to the earth his path is no longer
that of the immortals, his way is as the way of men, constantly
obstructed, and made a thousandfold more difficult by the velocity of his
passage. Imagine shooting an arrow from the strongest bow in such a
manner that it might travel about seven inches above the ground - how far
would it go before it would strike a tall buttercup, a wiry bennet, or
stick into a slight rise of the turf? You must imagine it given the power
to rise over hedges, to make short angles about buildings, slip between
the trunks of trees, to avoid moving objects, as men or animals, not to
come in contact with other animated arrows, and by some mysterious
instinct to know what is or what is not out of sight on the other side of
the wall. I was sitting on a log in the narrowest of narrow lanes, a
hedge at the back, in front thick fir trees, whose boughs touched the
ground, almost within reach, the lane being nothing more than a broader
footpath. It was one of those overcast days when the shelter of the hedge
and the furze was pleasant in July. Suddenly a swallow slid by me as it
seemed underneath my very hands, so close to the ground that he almost
travelled in the rut, the least movement on my part would have stopped
him. Almost before I could lift my head he had reached the end of the
lane and rose over the gate into the road - not a moments pause before he
made that leap over the gate to see if there was a waggon or not in the
way; a waggon-load of hay would have blocked the road entirely.
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