A GREAT EYE. 187

“What is Egypt?” said the mother lark to herself. “Is
that where the swallows go in winter time to live? They take
their little ones with them. I have seen them all sitting ina
row on the rail between the big posts down by the roadside,
and twittering while the young ones tried whether their wings
would carry them. I am sure my husband would never go and
leave me and the children behind.”

“ Qui-vit! vit-vit!” screamed the swallow, as he whirled
by once more. He. knew many foreign languages, and that
was perhaps Egyptian for ‘‘ Keep up your spirits ! I dare say
~ your husband will soon be back. I don't call it anything myself
to run across to Egypt; why, my wife and I can do it in four-
teen hours, or thereabouts!”

And off went the swallow to settle on the ground and scoop
up a beakful of mud ; for his house had a leak in it after the
rain, and he wanted to patch it up.

He was cleverer than any mason, for he could cling to the
side of the wall by his claws, while he set to work plastering
and daubing, using his beak for a trowel, and keeping up a
stream of small talk all the while with the other swallows which
had their nests under the Rectory eaves.

Swooping and darting in and out, the swallows seemed
never quiet, and close by were the long-winged black swifts,
which never perched on the ground at all for the whole six
weeks they spent in England, but ate as they flew, drank as
they flew, collected feathers wafted by the wind, and mud
without perching on the ground, to make their nests, and hung
themselves up at night by their hooked feet like bats.

“T think they overdo it,” said the swallow, as he nestled
in a cosy way up to his wife; ‘a hundred and twenty miles an
hour is enough to make respectable people dizzy. Besides, I
am fond of a rest myself on those wires between poles which