They seemed almost famished and spent, and were
only feathers and bone; but, being recruited with a night's rest, took
their flight in the morning."

51. Now I detain you on this point somewhat, because it is intimately
connected with a more important one. I told you we should learn from
the swallow what a wing was. Few other birds approach him in the beauty
of it, or apparent power. And yet, after all this care taken about it,
he gets tired; and instead of flying, as we should do in his place, all
over the world, and tasting the flavor of the midges in every marsh
which the infinitude of human folly has left to breed gnats instead of
growing corn,--he is of all birds, characteristically, except when he
absolutely can't help it, the stayer at home; and contentedly lodges
himself and his family in an old chimney, when he might be flying all
over the world.

At least you would think, if he built in an English chimney this year,
he would build in a French one next. But no. Michelet prettily says of
him, "He is the bird of return." If you will only treat him kindly,
year after year, he comes back to the same niche, and to the same
hearth, for his nest.

To the same niche; and builds himself an opaque walled house within
that. Think of this a little, as if you heard of it for the first time.

52. Suppose you had never seen a swallow; but that its general habit
of life had been described to you, and you had been asked, how you
thought such a bird would build its nest. A creature, observe, whose
life is to be passed in the air; whose beak and throat are shaped
with the fineness of a net for the catching of gnats; and whose feet,
in the most perfect of the species, are so feeble that it is called
the Footless Swallow, and cannot stand a moment on the ground with
comfort. Of all land birds, the one that has least to do with the
earth; of all, the least disposed, and the least able, to stop to
pick anything up. What will it build with? Gossamer, we should
say,--thistledown,--anything it can catch floating, like flies.

But it builds with stiff clay.

53. And observe its chosen place for building also. You would think, by
its play in the air, that not only of all birds, but of all creatures,
it most delighted in space and freedom. You would fancy its notion of
the place for a nest would be the openest field it could find; that
anything like confinement would be an agony to it; that it would almost
expire of horror at the si