248 The Natural History of Se I borne 



large villages but what abound with house-martins; few 

 churches, towers, or steeples, but what are haunted by some 

 swifts; scarce a hamlet or single cottage-chimney that has 

 not its swallow ; while the bank-martins, scattered here and 

 there, live a sequestered life among some abrupt sand-hills, 

 and in the banks of some few rivers. 1 



These birds have a peculiar manner of flying ; flitting about 

 with odd jerks, and vacillations, not unlike the motions of a 

 butterfly. Doubtless the flight of all hirundines is influenced 

 by, and adapted to, the peculiar sort of insects which furnish 

 their food. Hence it would be worth inquiry to examine 

 what particular genus of insects affords the principal food of 

 each respective species of swallow. 



Notwithstanding what has been advanced above, some few 

 sand-martins, I see, haunt the skirts of London, frequenting 

 the dirty pools in Saint George's Fields, and about White- 

 chapel. The question is where these build, since there are 

 no banks or bold shores in that neighbourhood ; perhaps 

 they nestle in the scaffold-holes of some old or new deserted 

 building. They dip and wash as they fly sometimes, like the 

 house-martin and swallow. 



Sand-martins differ from their congeners in the diminutive- 

 ness of their size, and in their colour, which is what is usually 

 called a mouse-colour. Near Valencia, in Spain, they are 

 taken, says Willughby, and sold in the markets for the table ; 

 and are called by the country people, probably from their 

 desultory jerking manner of flight, Papilion de Montagna. 



1 All this is now changed, and even in White's own immediate area the 

 sand-martin has become extremely common. ED. 



