A BIRDLOVER'S YEAR 



Round the eaves of houses, 



Swallows, as they flit, 

 Give, like yearly tenants, 



Notices to quit. 



So wrote Tom Hood, and, alas ! it is only 

 too true. By October the most of these 

 gentle little visitors have taken their de- 

 parture. The writer remembers watching 

 a large departure of swallows from Grindel- 

 wald, in the Canton de Berne. The birds 

 assembled in vast arrays towards the end 

 of September, and for some days crowded 

 on to the telephone and telegraph wires ; 

 then, when their army grew large enough, 

 they silently started on their long voyage, 

 leaving behind them one belated mammalian 

 traveller. 



The sand-martin is the earliest of the 

 swallows to arrive and the first to leave. 

 Its eggs are laid in holes in the sandbanks 

 along the riverside, which these birds ex- 

 cavate with their delicate little beaks. In- 

 deed, the banks have a riddled appearance 

 owing to the enormous number of holes 

 which are dug so close to one another. 

 At the end of these little galleries are found 



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