286 BRITISH BIRDS. 



There were fresh arrivals every moment, while others 

 skimmed away to the southward as if to look for another 

 "fly-patch," and I rather broke the party up by several 

 shots with my little collecting- gun in order to secure a 

 specimen for complete identification. 



Up to 2.30 p.m. it had been a perfectly fine day, with 

 just breeze enough to move the fleecy white clouds across 

 the sun, but now a change came on the scene — dark clouds 

 quickly gathered over the sea, the wind rose and hurried 

 them to the north-westward, obscuring the sun, and there 

 was every indication of a rapidly approaching rain-storm, 

 such as we had experienced during the last few days, and 

 indeed rain could already be seen falling over the sea. As 

 a matter of fact, beyond a few drojis of rain and hurried 

 gusts of wind over the hillsides, nothing happened in our 

 hills, and in little more than an hour's time the wind had 

 dropped, the clouds had dissolved as rapidly as they had 

 made their appearance, and the sun shone once more to 

 herald a perfect evening. 



The effect of this slight alteration of meteorological 

 conditions upon the migration of the Swallows was 

 wonderful. They obviously would not face the (probable) 

 storm, and stopped. A banking up of the migrator}^ 

 stream resulted, fresh birds arriving continually from the 

 north-north-east to swell the multitude, until the air was 

 simply alive with Swallows wheeling around from the ground 

 level to about 1000 feet high, evidently catching flies and 

 making the most of their time. There must have been 

 thousands within my field of vision. 



It was a fine sight and a very marked phenomenon. 

 The dispersal of the multitude was equally well marked ; 

 but I was sorry not to have observed it more closely, as I 

 was engaged in chasing some Irrisors (the first I had 

 seen). When I started on that chase, which only lasted 

 about a quarter of an hour, the Swallows were as thick as 

 ever, and when it was over at 4 p.m., I looked again for 

 the Swallows. Where were the}^? They had melted 

 away, leaving hardly a single bird in view, and in another 



