Citizen Bird

"We would have you to wit, that on eggs though we sit, And are spiked on the spit, and are baked in a pan; Birds are older by far than your ancestors are, And made love and made war, ere the making of man!" (Andrew Lang.) A party of Swallows perched on the telegraph wires beside the highway where it passed Orchard Farm. They were resting after a breakfast of insects, which they had caught on the wing, after the custom of their family. As it was only the first of May they had plenty of time before nest-building, and so were having a little neighborly chat. If you had glanced at these birds carelessly, you might have thought they were all of one kind; but they were not. The smallest was the Bank Swallow, a sober-hued little fellow, with a short, sharp-pointed tail, his back feathers looking like a dusty brown cloak, fastened in front by a neck-band between his light throat and breast. Next to him perched the Barn Swallow, a bit larger, with a tail like an open pair of glistening scissors and his face and throat a beautiful ruddy buff. There were so many glints of color on his steel-blue back and wings, as he spread them in the sun, that it seemed as if in some of his nights he must have collided with a great soap-bubble, which left its shifting hues upon him as it burst.