SWALLOW. 249 



So noticeable a bird is naturally recorded early and late ; 

 many have seen November, and even December stragglers. 

 There is some support for the statement that, exceptionally, a 

 bird unable to risk the sea-passage, has survived our winter, 

 but none for the suggestion, founded on ancient myth, that 

 birds seen early in the year had hibernated. That paired 

 Swallows return at once to the nesting site is not true in most 

 years. For days, even weeks, according to weather conditions, 

 the first comers frequent the larger waters, marshes and sewage 

 farms, where insect life is plentiful even in a late spring. All 

 day they hawk for flies, and at night roost gregariously in reeds 

 and osiers. When insect life becomes plentiful elsewhere, the 

 birds speedily distribute themselves, though a late frost will 

 drive them back to these haunts ; a bad frost in May, cutting 

 off supplies, spells disaster. The same roosts are 'occupied by 

 returning birds in autumn ; the evening flight of the twittering 

 multitudes before they rain into the reeds or willow bed is a 

 most interesting sight. These gatherings begin early in August, 

 even in July, when the first brood is on the wing. 



The twittering song of the Swallow is heard continuously 

 during its stay ; the bird sings on the wing and when perched. 

 It is a cheery, simple song, hard to describe ; Yarr ell's /^<?/«/<?^/, 

 feetafeetit gives perhaps the best impression. ^The call is aloud 

 twliit^ repeated two or three times. The clamour of the young 

 when the parent brings food is an emphatic variant of this 

 twitter, and the alarm, uttered when birds are mobbing a hawk 

 or Cuckoo, sounds like an angry very rapid repetition of the 

 twhit. The Swallow has very short legs but can perch, though 

 on the ground it is less at ease than the House-Martin. It will 

 however, alight to gather mud, and exceptionally to feed. 

 Dipterous flies and other winged insects are its food, but it will 

 sweep an insect off grass or the surface of water, and even pick 

 one, when hovering, from a wall. Numbers of small beetles, 

 especially Aphodius and its allies, are devoured, but these are 



