OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS 347 



No author that I am acquainted with has given so accurate 

 and pleasing an account of the manners and habits of the goat- 

 sucker as Mr. White, taken entirely from his own observations. 

 Its being a nocturnal bird, has prevented my having many 

 opportunities of observing it. I suspect that it passes the day 

 in concealment amidst the dark and shady gloom of deep- 

 wooded dells, or as they are called here gills ; having more 

 than once seen it roused from such solitary places by my dogs, 

 when shooting in the day-time. I have also sometimes seen it 

 in an evening, but not long enough to take notice of its habits 

 and manners. I have never seen it but in summer, between 

 the months of May and September. MARKWICK. 



SAND-MARTINS. March 23rd, 1788. A gentleman who 

 was this week on a visit at Waverley took the opportunity of 

 examining some of the holes in the sandbanks with which 

 that district abounds. As these are undoubtedly bored by bank- 

 martins, and are the places where they avowedly breed, he was 

 in hopes that they might have slept there also, and that he 

 might have surprised them just as they were awaking from 

 their winter slumbers. When he had dug for some time, he 

 found the holes were horizontal and serpentine, as I had ob- 

 served before ; and that the nests were deposited at the inner 

 end, and had been occupied by broods in former summers, but 

 no torpid birds were to be found. He opened and examined 

 about a dozen holes. Another gentleman made the same 

 search many years ago, with as little success. 



These holes were in depth about two feet. 



March 2ist, 1790. A single bank or sand martin was seen 

 hovering and playing round the sandpit at Short Heath, where 

 in the summer they abound. 



April Qth, 1793. A sober hind assures us that this day, on 

 Wishhanger Common between Hedleigh and Frinsham, he saw 

 several bank-martins playing in and out, and hanging before 

 some nest-holes in a sandhill, where these birds usually 

 nestle. 



The incident confirms my suspicions, that this species of 

 hirundo is to be seen first of any ; and gives great reason to 

 suppose that they do not leave their wild haunts at all, but 



