242 HIRUNDINID^J. 



Nightingale ; for he cheers my sense of seeing as much as 

 the other does my sense of hearing. He is the glad pro- 

 phet of the year the harbinger of the best season : he 

 lives a life of enjoyment amongst the loveliest forms of 

 nature : winter is unknown to him ; and he leaves the 

 green meadows of England in autumn, for the myrtle and 

 orange groves of Italy, and for the palms of Africa." This 

 is, in truth, a brief, but a perfect sketch of the history of 

 the Swallow, and I have only to fill up the outline by 

 adding the details. 



The Swallow is a periodical visitor to this country, and 

 more records are preserved of its first appearance every 

 season than of that of any other bird. The average of 

 many records and many seasons, seems to give the 10th 

 of April as the mean period of its arrival ; and it remains 

 more than six months in this country, frequently on its 

 return revisiting the precise locality it had inhabited for 

 seasons before. Swallows are occasionally seen earlier 

 than the date here mentioned, even in a backward spring, 

 the migration being influenced by the temperature of the 

 country they proceed from. In a letter written by Prince 

 Charles Bonaparte, and dated on board the Delaware, near 

 Gibraltar, March 20th, 1828, it is stated that a few days 

 before, " being five hundred miles from the coasts of Por- 

 tugal, and four hundred from those of Africa, we were 

 agreeably surprised by the appearance of a few Swallows, 

 Hirundo rustica and urbica. The wind had blown a gale 

 from the eastward." In that year the first Swallow seen at 

 Carlisle, as recorded by Mr. Heysham, was on the 18th of 

 April : the first seen in Cornwall, as recorded by Mr. Couch, 

 was on the 17th. " These birds, in crossing the Channel," 

 Mr. Couch observes, " reach the land near the shore, and in 

 misty weather seem to have a difficulty in finding it ; for I 

 have been assured by intelligent fishermen, that, when the 



