28.5 ] 



AN INCIDENT IN THE SOUTHWARD MIGRATION 

 OF THE SWALLOAV. 



BY 



Commander H. LYNES, R.N., M.B.O.U. 



On the 1st of November, 1907, I was fortunate enough to 

 witness an incident in the southward migration of some 

 of our European Chimney-Swallows {Hirundo rusfica), 

 which appears to me to be worth recording-, if only to add 

 something to the meagre information we possess about 

 many of our British Birds during their winter peregri- 

 nations. 



It haj^jDened near Mombasa (British East Africa) among 

 the undulating hills that overlook the sea at a distance of 

 about seven miles. 



I was making acquaintance, to my great delight, with the 

 Touracos, Hornbills, Sunbirds and other Ethiojjian birds 

 quite new to me, when about noon there flitted by two 

 or three birds that looked very much like our English 

 Swallow^ ; and about l.oO p.m. I became aware of an 

 intermittent passage to the south-south-westward of small 

 parties of the same species^five or six at a time. 



They were flying, as in the Mediterranean I have so 

 often seen them on migration, quite low, never more than 

 twenty feet from the ground, and often just skimming over 

 the tops of the long grass and bushes, but always pressing 

 onwards in a steady business-like way, at the rate of about 

 twenty-five miles an hour. Still, beyond just noting the fact 

 with the time and bearing in my pocket-book, I did not jjay 

 any particular attention to these Swallows, engrossed as I 

 was with the African birds {Hir undines among them), until 

 at 2.30 p.m. I came upon a party of some fifty birds which 

 had stopped travelling and were circling low over a patch 

 of grass catching flies. 



