136 SUMMER BIRDS OF PASSAGE. 



winged English summer birds of passage, concern- 

 ing whose departure we have made so much inquiry. 

 Now, if these birds are found, in Andalusia, to mi- 

 grate to and from Barbary, it may easily be supposed 

 that those that come to us may migrate back to the 

 continent, and spend their winters in some of the 

 warmer parts of Europe. This is certain, that many 

 soft-billed birds, that come to Gibraltar, appear there 

 only in spring and autumn, seeming to advance in 

 pairs towards the northward, for the sake of breed-- 

 ing during the summer months, and retiring in 

 parties and broods towards the south at the decline 

 of the year ; so that the rock of Gibraltar is the great 

 rendezvous and place of observation, from whence 

 they take their departure each way towards Europe 

 or Africa. It is, therefore, no mean discovery, 1 think, 

 to find that our small short-winged summer birds of 

 passage are to be seen, spring and autumn, on the 

 very skirts of Europe ; it is a presumptive proof of 

 their emigrations. 



Scopoli seems to me to have found the hirundo 

 melba, (the great Gibraltar swift,) in Tyrol, without 

 knowing it. For what is his hirundo alpina, but the 

 aforementioned bird in other words ? Says he, 

 " Omnia prioris, (meaning the swift,) sed pectus album; 

 paulo major prior e" " All the marks of the former 

 but the wliite breast ; a little larger than the former." 

 I do not suppose this to be a new species. It is true, 

 also, of the melba, that " nidificat in excelsis Alpium 

 rupibus" It builds its nest in the lofty cliffs of the 

 Alps. Vid. Annum Primum. 



My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good 

 sense, but no naturalist, to whom I applied on ac- 

 count of the stone curlew (bedicnemusj , sends me the 

 following account : " In looking over my Natural- 

 ist's Journal for the month of April, I find the stone 

 curlews are first mentioned on the 17th and 18th, 



