THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 433 



236. Martin [HAUSSCHWALBE]. 



HIRUNDO URBICA, Linn. 1 

 Heligolandish : Witt Swoalk= White Swalloiv. 



Hirundo urbica. Naumann, vi. 75. 



Martin. Dresser, iii. 495. 



Hirondelle defenctre. Temminck, Manuel, i. 428, iii. 300. 



For four or five years several pairs of these pretty birds had 

 built their nests under the gable of a house situated on the shore 

 of the island, and had successfully reared their young. Unfor- 

 tunately, during some repairs, a few of the nests were destroyed, 

 and another was impudently taken possession of by sparrows ; in 

 consequence of these disturbances, the Swallows abandoned the 

 place. A few years later, however, several pairs again established 

 themselves on buildings along the shore, while some others chose 

 for their nesting-place a large grotto, about forty feet high, on the 

 western side of the cliff; so that Heligoland is now able to show a 

 small colony of these pretty, harmless creatures. 



This Swallow also occurs here very numerously as a bird of 

 passage arriving, however, in spring somewhat later than the 

 Common Swallow, and again passing at a correspondingly earlier 

 time in autumn. As a breeding species it is distributed almost 

 over the whole of Europe, extending to about central Asia, for 

 Jerdon met with it nesting as far east as northern India. The bird 

 seen by Seebohm on the Lower Jenesei, however, was not of this 

 species but a close relative, H. lagopoda, which is said among other 

 characters to be distinguished from the European form by the 

 fact of the longest upper tail-coverts being pure white, whereas in 

 H. urbica they are black (Seebohm, Siberia in Asia, p. 115). 



The present species, however, is found breeding abundantly even 

 in Upper Lapland, 68 N. latitude, and extends as far as eastern 

 Finmark. A pair also, in June 1819, began to build a nest in the 

 north of Iceland, but soon gave up the attempt, and took their 

 departure The same thing happened a year later on the south 

 side of that island with a pair of Common Swallows (Faber, 

 Prodronius der Isldndischen Ornithologie, p. 20). 



1 Chelidon urbica (Linn.). 



2E 



