Fleet, fleet, fleet, Are those the swallows I hear? The sound was sudden and sweet, And this is the spring of the year. To my dim eyes they seem But a sudden light as they pass; But I know how they skim o’er the stream, And over the churchyard grass. Their wings are a sudden light, Thy tunes will not be long, For my spirit is nearer its flight Than that of the young and the strong; Fleet, fleet, fleet, my days are waning fast, I hear them cry, for out of the sky, “There are wings for the soul at last.” SWALLOWS. A NEW season is begun. Parliament met to-day. London is getting full, and the price of coals has fallen. The celandine (swallow-flower) is beginning to cover the hedgerow banks of the Isle of Wight with yellow stars, and the swallows themselves will soon be with us again. I may mention as another agreeable sign of spring the return of “Pen and Pencil,” not to the old nest, but under shelter of the old hospitality. The Rhodians used to salute the return of the swallows with a traditional popular song, the _Chelidonisma_; perhaps some lady present may gratify us with a chant of the like purport. My own aim this evening is merely to give some brief natural history notes on the British swallows, drawn partly from books and partly from my own observation. There are about sixty species of the family of Hirundinidæ, but only four kinds (counting the swift as one) are habitual visitors of the British Islands—the chimney swallow, the house martin, the bank martin (_Hirundo rustica_, _urbica_, and _riparia_), and fourthly the swift (_Cypselus_). The chimney swallow (_rustica_) has a brownish-red throat, back of blue-black lustre, under part of body reddish-white, and a long forked tail. It is a bold bird, and trusting to its superior speed, dashes at a hawk whenever it sees one. It always builds near men, and makes its cup-shaped nest inside chimneys and old wells, in barns, gateways, sheds, and arches of bridges. There are four or five spotted eggs, and it brings out two broods each year. The chimney swallow has a sweet little song of its own, and is one of the earliest birds heard of a summer morning, beginning soon after two o’clock. It is said to grow very tame in confinement, but I never saw and should not like to see one in a cage. These are the most abundant of our swallows, and the same birds return year after year, while their little time endures, to the same localities, and often very likely to the same nests.