208 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



jecting ledge of the granite column of Portpatrick Lighthouse; 

 but as the structure was not so high as the surrounding cliffs, the 

 Martins wisely chose the lee side of the pillar, and were thus safe 

 from the westerly gales, which often dashed the waves and spray 

 with great violence against it. 



It sometimes happens, especially when the weather becomes 

 unsettled, that hirundines generally are obliged to leave our 

 inhospitable climate as early as the beginning of September. I 

 remember, ten years ago, seeing on the last day of August, hun- 

 dreds of this species, the chimney swallow and the sand-martin, 

 fluttering in an excited state near the Kelvin Bridge, on the 

 Partick Road, Glasgow, having apparently sought refuge in the 

 sheltered bend of the river, where they would be less distressed 

 by the wind and rain, and where also they appeared to find flies 

 and other insects, which they snatched from the surface. Some- 

 times they would essay to fly higher than the trees, but were 

 driven back by the wet gusts sweeping overhead, and forced to 

 amuse themselves as before by swarming over the filthy water- 

 course, and threading their way through the arches of the bridge. 

 Their numbers became augmented from the surrounding country; 

 and at last, when the storm was well spent, they congregated one 

 morning on the housetops above the village of Partick, holding 

 a council as to their future plans. It lasted but an hour or two, 

 for before mid-day they rose in a body, and, after a few anxious 

 twitterings, ascended cloudwards, and left our country. This, of 

 course, is the manner of swallows when leaving us for a warmer 

 clime, as every bird-observer knows; but in this case the act being 

 performed so early in the season, we are left room to speculate on 

 their reasons, so to speak, for depriving us of their company. 



As I have frequently observed similar early movements of 

 hirundines en masse, it is possible that in almost every case these 

 were attributable to local causes, and that the birds were merely 

 shifting their quarters to a more southerly district of Britain. 

 "One swallow," we are told, "does not make a summer;" and, 

 on the like principle, it would be wrong to refer what may have 

 been but the " first assembly of the season " to the movement of 

 a general migration. 



