i62 THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



It departs a little earlier than the Swallow and House Martin, 

 though small parties sometimes linger until late in October ; 

 the late Wm. Talbot, in his " Birds of Wakefield," 1877, 

 recorded one as late as the 14th, and on the 20th of the same 

 month, in 1880, about twenty were observed in Flamborough 

 village, hawking for insects. 



This bird, the least of the genus, is abundant in those 

 localities where suitable situations for its nesting galleries 

 are met with, such as the sandy banksides of rivers, sand 

 quarries, and the face of precipitous cliffs both inland and 

 on the sea-coast. In some districts it is more numerous than 

 the two preceding species, this being the case at Pateley 

 Bridge ; but it is necessarily a local bird, its numbers depending 

 on the presence of available nesting quarters ; on the east 

 Wolds and in the higher reaches of some of the dales, such 

 as Swaledale and Arkengarthdale, it is, for lack of them, 

 rather rare. In Teesdale a colony is established about two 

 miles above Middleton, and in Nidderdale it is met with 

 to 1400 feet elevation, and is not infrequent in the neighbour- 

 hood of the large reservoirs in the West Riding dales. On 

 the sea-cliffs of Boulby in the North Riding, and at 

 Flamborough in the East, several large colonies are found, 

 those at the latter place being in the sand veins in the upper 

 cliff, between the chalk and the boulder clay on the south 

 beach. Twenty or thirty years ago they were very common 

 on the sandhills between Redcar and Saltburn, where they 

 had nesting galleries in the steep sides of the banks facing the 

 sea, but, erosion of the coast having destroyed the holes, 

 they have deserted the place and are now quite scarce. At 

 Thorne Waste, near Goole, the Sand Martins excavate holes, 

 drilling the peaty sides of the trenches cut for the drainage 

 of the moss ; this is a departure from the ordinary habits 

 of the birds, though a more unusual nesting place was utilised 

 by several pairs, which bred in the markers' huts on Strensall 

 Common, in 1881 ; and a still more curious locality was 

 mentioned by the late E. TindaU of Knapton, who found 

 a pair nesting in the north end of an old haystack ; the eggs 

 were on the point of hatching when they were, unfortunately, 



