184. BRITISH BIRDS. 
HIRUNDO RIPARIA. 
SAND-MARTIN. 
(Piate 17.) 
Hirundo riparia, Briss. Orn. ii. p. 506 (1760); Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 344 (1766); et 
auctorum plurimorum—Gmelin, Latham, Temminck, (Bonaparte), Naumann, 
(Degland & Gerbe), (Heuglin), (Newton), (Dresser), &c. 
Hirundo cinerea, Vieill. N. Dict. @ Hist. Nat. xiv. p. 526 (1817). 
Cotyle riparia (Linn.), Bote, Isis, 1822, p. 550. 
Cotyle littoralis, Hemp. § Ehr. fide Licht. Nomencl. Av. p. 61 (1854). 
The Sand-Martin is perhaps the least known of the Swallows, and is 
very often overlooked, or confused with its larger and more showy relations. 
From the peculiarity of its haunts, it is more local in its distribution than 
the Swallow and the Martin; nevertheless it is found throughout the 
British Islands, in some districts in immense numbers. It appears only 
to visit the Channel Islands on migration; but it is as common and as 
widely distributed in Scotland and Ireland as in England. It breeds in 
the Outer Hebrides and in the Orkneys, but is only seen occasionally in 
the Shetlands, and has not been recorded from the Faroes. 
The Sand-Martin is a circumpolar bird, except that in Greenland the 
severity of the climate appears to have driven it out of the country. In 
Scandinavia its colonies are found as far north as lat. 70°; but in the 
valleys of the Petchora, the Obb, and the Yenesay the most northerly 
colonies are in about lat. 67°. Middendorff found it on an island on the 
Pacific coast of Asia, in lat. 55°; and Dybowsky obtained it in Kamtschatka. 
In North America it breeds from Behring’s Straits to Baffin’s Bay, up to 
about lat. 68°. South of these limits it breeds throughout Europe and 
North Africa, and in Asia as far south as Palestine, Central Persia, 
Turkestan, South Siberia, East Mongolia, Japan, and the northern half of 
China. Very little is known respecting its winter-quarters ; but occasional 
stragglers are met with in Teneriffe ; and on the east coast of Africa it has 
occurred at Zanzibar, and as far south as the Transvaal. In Asia it is 
sparingly found during the cold season in India and Burma; and the obser- 
vations of ?Abbé David tend to prove that it also winters in Central and 
South China. On the American continent Dall found enormous colonies 
in Alaska up to lat. 65°; and Richardson found it equally abundant at the 
mouth of the Mackenzie river, in lat. 68°. Its southern breeding-range 
on this continent is not very accurately determined; but it is said to 
winter in Mexico, and is found at that season in Central America and in 
the valley of the Amazon. In the Ethiopian and Oriental Regions the 
Sand-Martin has several allies, but none with which it is likely to be con- 
