266 BELATED SWALLOWS 



snow on the ground from 26th to 29th December. The 

 swallow did not survive this cold spell, dying, probably, 

 not from cold, but from starvation. The martins, how- 

 ever, made a gallant fight. On January 13 only one of 

 them was to be seen skimming close to the water after 

 such insects as were about, and so every day until the 

 23rd, when the entry in the diary was as follows : 



' Cutting wind from N.E. Eleven degrees of frost last night. 

 Martin still courageously and persistently hawking for food 

 close to the surface of the water. It appears to-day very 

 feeble, and is only just able to flutter along, and does not 

 attempt to leave the stream as yesterday.' 



The bird was never seen again. It is a sad little story, 

 and illustrates the perils besetting all migratory birds. 

 Steaming one cold April day in a yacht across the 

 Adriatic from the Gulf of Taranto to Corfu, we saw 

 hundreds of birds wheatears, hoopoes, warblers, etc. 

 all flying north. There was a rough, lopping sea, and 

 many of the little wayfarers seemed scarcely able to 

 clear the tops of the waves. We were running not 

 more than nine knots, yet we overtook as many birds 

 as were able to overtake us. Their average speed, 

 therefore, may be reckoned at about nine knots an 

 hour, and as it is upwards of 400 geographical miles 

 from Jeb-el-Akbhar, the nearest point on the African 

 coast, to the coast of Greece, near Cephalonia, they 

 must have remained forty-eight hours on the wing 

 without food or water. Several birds alighted on our 

 decks, and immediately went to sleep, evidently in the 

 last stage of exhaustion. But they must have been 

 hungry too, and not the least part of the mystery of 



