32 



SPRING 



birds of passage and southern residents together fill the copse 

 with willow-wren's music till it is hardly silent for a single 

 moment of the day. Their notes are almost equally persis- 

 tent on any fine day in late April and May by the northern 

 streams, wherever there are woods and bushes. 



Except for a few prematurely daring swallows, which are 

 detected by comparatively few eyes, the earliest visitor of 



the swallow tribe is in 

 most places the sand- 

 martin. Like the other 

 swallows on their first 

 arrival, they haunt rivers 

 and sheltered water- 

 meadows, where the 



still scanty supply of 

 swallow . . , 



insects is most plenti- 

 ful ; and where the river bank is bored with their holes, they 

 can be seen slipping sluggishly in and out in cold weather 

 and flying low over the wind-beaten stream. A few swallows 

 soon join them ; but it is often some little time before the 

 house- martins make 

 the family party com- 

 plete. As they fly low 

 over the stream sand- 

 martins can be easily 

 recognised by their 

 grey-brown backs and 

 wings and feeble, flut- 

 tering flight, house-martins by their back being half-white, 

 and swallows by their dark, steely blue. When the swifts 

 come later they are unmistakable from their large size and 

 superior power on the wing, and the sooty dulness of their 

 black plumage. As they sweep low about us by the stream- 



HOUSE-MARTIN 



