BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 73 



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INSESSORES FISSSIROSTRES. HIRUNDINIDJ3. 



122. HIRTJNDO RUSTICA, Linnaeus. Swallow. 



The ever welcome Swallow, most anxiously looked 

 for of any of our summer migrants, is generally first 

 seen about the 14th of April varying about a week, 

 according to the earliness or backwardness of the 

 season and the consequent abundance or scarcity of 

 insects. The earliest arrival noted by me was on the 

 9th of April*, the latest on the 22nd. Arrive 

 gradually: first we see a pair hawking over a sheltered 

 pond or stream ; then a day or two later, perhaps, half 

 a dozen may be found in these places, the main 

 body not arriving till fully ten days after these Uhlans. 

 Both the old and young birds congregate in large 

 flocks in the autumn, preparatory to their departure, 

 which migration occurs about the end of September, 

 some stragglers, mostly birds of the last brood, remain- 

 ing in sheltered situations up to the middle of October, 

 and occasionally even to the last week in that monthf. 



noysome vermine, destroyers of cornes ;" also " Crowes, Choughs 

 or Rookes, Mertons, Furskites, Molekites, Bussardes, Sca.gges, 

 Cormorantes, Ringtails, Irenes or Ospreys, Pies, Woodwales, 

 Jayes, Ravens or Kightes, Kingefahers, Bulfinches, and other 

 ravenous birds dewourers of corn." 



* On the 1st of April, 1872, I saw a single Swallow in the 

 / Great-Cotes marshes, but no more till the J 2th, when I saw 

 four together. 



t On the 14th, 15th, and 16th of November 1866 a single bird, 

 as the Rev. M. G. Watkins informs me, hawked for several 

 hours each day round the Rectory house at Barnoldl^-le-Beck. 



