Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 57 



banks which in the very wildest localities rise in picturesque beauty- 

 above the river or the lake, as to the stratum of sand which overlies 

 the quarry, or to the sand-pit, where the respective operations of 

 quarrying for stone or excavating for sand are daily in progress. 



To the banks of a spacious sand-pit close to the old Malone road, 

 and within a mile of Belfast, a colony of these birds annually repair. 

 Here, in consequence of the sand being in great demand for building 

 purposes, they have the labour of making entirely new excavations 

 for their nests at least once, and occasionally twice, in the season. 

 So great is the demand for this sand, that although the excavation 

 made by the bird will, when the bank is soft, sometimes extend five 

 feet inward, I have known the bank colonized by it to be required 

 for use before the first brood had escaped ; and in such case, the 

 labour of forming a second burrow in the same season was com- 

 menced. 



On the 29th of April 1832, an observant friend informed me, that, 

 of the sand martins' excavations in this place, thirty-two were then 

 made, and that about three days afterwards two more appeared ; 

 he also observed the birds employed in carrying hay and feathers 

 into them. When visiting this place on the 18th September of the 

 same year, I reckoned seventy of the perforations of this species. 



May 18, 1833. — On the south side of the Malone sand-pit, the 

 sand martins have, since their arrival this season, excavated above 

 eighty holes towards the top of the bank*, some of them not more 

 than two inches apart, although there is an abundance of room ; so 

 much indeed that the colony does not occupy more than one-fiftieth 

 part of the bank suitable for their nests. 



May 27, 1833. — No excavations have been made here by the sand 

 martin since the 18th inst.f 



Of the places around Belfast resorted to by this species, are two, 

 differing much in character ; the one a portion of the bank of the 



* In this locality, where the birds have a choice of banks from thirty to 

 forty feet in height, and the sand is of a similar nature throughout, they 

 always select situations where they are most out of the reach of enemies of all 

 kinds ; so that it cannot here be said that " they exercise their propensity 

 [for boring] without reflection." — Macgillivray's Brit. Birds, vol. iii. p. 599. 

 Where they have not thus had a choice, I have frequently seen their burrows 

 in places where they were subject to be destroyed. 



f Sand martins were a full month later than usual in their arrival in the 

 north of Ireland in the spring of 1836 (when all the spring migrants were 

 late), and but comparatively few made their appearance even then. The sand- 

 pit above alluded to, and their chief haunt in the neighbourhood of Belfast, 

 was entirely deserted by them in the summer of that year ; and, from the 

 progress of the excavation, not a burrow of the preceding season remained 

 to denote that the species had ever been there. In 1837 I omitted to look 

 after them, but in 1838 they were in numbers here as usual. On visiting 

 the locality on the evening of the 11th of May I saw not less than sixty of 

 these birds flying about, and so many were giving utterance to their feeble 

 note, as to produce a considerable noise. Their burrows of this season were 

 scattered over the entire eastern facade of the sand-pit ; and, as usual, all 

 placed near to the top of the bank. At the entrance to three of these holes 

 sparrows were stationed. 



