SAND-MARTIN. 339 



terings. Wliat angler has not watched their endless 

 flight, passing and repassing on the rippling water, and 

 felt how much enjoyment would be wanting to the 

 scene were there no birds to charm the eye and ear, no 

 gentle breeze to stir the rustling reed-stems. Ex- 

 tremely numerous in summer, the Sand-Martins arrive 

 rather earlier than the previous species and leave us 

 again towards the end of October, but a few may be 

 seen occasionally as late as the middle of November; 

 most probably young birds of the second brood, reared 

 late in the season. On their first arrival, before their 

 parental duties have commenced, they spend the entire 

 day upon the water, flitting and feasting from the 

 first dawn of morning till after sunset, and at night, 

 clinging by hundreds to the reed-stems, roost in the 

 great reed-beds upon the various broads, or in ozier-cars 

 and damp rush-bottomed plantations by the river side. 

 In such localities, also, the young of the first broods 

 retire to rest, no doubt a far more agreeable manner of 

 passing the dark hours than in their confined nest-holes 

 swarming with fleas. These, however, bear but little 

 comparison to the numbers which, later in the season, 

 collect from all parts towards sunset ; feasting as long as 

 daylight remains upon the innumerable insects that 

 swarm upon the surface of the water, and settling by 

 degrees, like the starlings, amongst the reeds ; whilst 

 stragglers are still arriving till past nine o'clock at 

 night. Late as they may be, however, in retiring to 

 rest, they may be seen again by three o'clock the next 

 morning, snatching a hasty meal amongst the swarming 

 midges, and dispersing themselves once more over the 

 marshes to spend, on ceaseless pinions, their busy useful 

 day.^ 



* Who but Macgillivray could describe their ever changiBg 

 course, or give, in such "winged words," the idea of swiftness; 

 yet thus he renders it : — " There comes a bank martin, skimming 

 2x2 



