Sir, - Despite a surfeit of annual reports of the first sightings of the swallow, it seems to me that the first unobserved specimen of these insectivorous vertebrates has the last "bird word" in the form of a message for the human species.
Wherefore, one trusts that the tiresome tedium often attending the swift succession of such record breaking bird bulletins will be swallowed up, as it were, by the airy sense of perspective suggested by the unrecorded touch down of that unknown, very first fork tailed flyer.
Thus, one is conscious of the relative insignificance of overemphasis of the extraordinary - and of the spectacular appearance of anything in this world compared with the importance of the cultivation of a sensitive awareness of the frequently taken for granted, extraordinarily ordinary, wonderful, daily bodying forth of everything under the sun, whether it is animal, vegetable or mineral. - Yours, etc.,
Laytown,
Co Meath.