The ancient swallow myth does not seem to have anywhere crept into folk-lore; nor is there much trace of the old Scandinavian delusion that swallows spent the winter under the ice on lakes, or hanging up in caves like bunches of grapes. The swallow is taken simply as the typical bird of passage, the spring-bringer, the messenger, the traveller _outre mer_. She is the picked bird of countries, the African explorer, the Indian pioneer. A Servian story reports of her in the latter capacity. The small-leafed Sweet Basil complains, "Silent dew, why fallest thou not on me?" "For two mornings," answers the dew, "I fell on thee; this morning I amused myself by watching a great marvel. A vila (a mountain spirit) quarrelled with an eagle over yonder mountain. Said the vila, 'The mountain is mine.' 'No,' said the eagle, 'it is mine.' The vila broke the eagle's wing, and the young eaglets moaned bitterly, for great was their peril. Then a swallow comforted them: 'Make no moan, young eaglets, I will carry you to the land of Ind, where the amaranth grows up to the horses' knees, where the clover reaches their shoulders, where the sun never sets.'" How, it may be asked, did the poet come by that notion of an Asiatic Eden? The folk-singer seldom paints foreign scenery in these glowing tints. There may be something of a south-ward longing in the boast-- I'll show ye how the lilies grow On the banks o' Italie. But this is cold and colourless beside the empire of the unsetting sun. Next to the swallow, the grey gull has the reputation of being the greatest traveller. Till lately the women of Croisic met on Assumption Day and sang a song to the gulls, imploring them to bring back their husbands and their lovers who were out at sea. Larks are often chosen as letter-carriers for short distances. The Greek knows that it is spring when pair by pair the turtle-doves swoop down to the brooks. He is an accurate observer; in April or May any retired English pool will be found flecked over with the down of the wood-pigeons that come to drink and bathe in it. The cooing of doves is by general consent associated with constancy and requited love. It is not always, however, that nations are agreed as to the sense of a bird's song. The "merrie cuckoo" is supposed by the Sclavs to be rehearsing an endless dirge for a murdered brother. A Czech poet lays down yet another cause for its conjectured melancholy: "Perched upon an oak tree, a cuckoo weeps because it is not always spring. How could the rye ripen in the fields if it were always spring? How could the apples ripen in the orchard if it were always summer? How could the corn harden in the rick if it were always autumn?" In spite of the sagacious content shown by these inquiries, it is probable that the sadness which the Sclav attributes to the cuckoo-cry is but an echo of the sadness, deep and wide, of his own race. Of the nightingale the Tuscan sings, in the spirit of one greater than he,--