BIRD NOTES 13 



telegraph wires; or, if in the town itself, have 

 gathered together upon some sloping roof facing 

 the east, as if welcoming the sun's warm rays. And 

 yet with all this demonstration, they usually manage 

 to slip away unobserved, and it is only on very rare 

 occasions that we are privileged to see them actually 

 travelling south. In the 'eighties I observed a con- 

 tinuous stream of Swallows flying past me, just over 

 the housetops, forging ahead silently and swiftly. 

 Each bird had about a cubic yard of space to 

 himself. As this flight took place over the town 

 I could not estimate the width of the flock, but it 

 was an unbroken procession which continued for 

 nearly half an hour. On 8th October 1892 I was 

 rambling upon the northern sandhills, when I 

 presently found myself in the midst of a similar 

 emigration. Silently and persistently, as before, 

 the birds trooped by, some just skimming over the 

 maram grasses, others passing by at a higher 

 altitude. I could have caught many easily with a 

 landing-net. Even here I could not estimate the 

 extent of the flock; they seemed as difficult to 

 calculate as the flakes of a snowstorm. 



It is noticeable that odd birds occasionally remain 

 behind, probably it may be some late hatched 



