8 JANUARY 



come to us late, and depart betimes ; but even so 

 they experience a wide range of temperature. The 

 cuckoo haunting the gorse bushes on the sunny links 

 of Nairn enjoys a much more genial climate than 

 his kinsman halfway up the side of Ben Nevis, 

 though both are in nearly the same latitude. Swal- 

 lows, too, are patient of a very low temperature, 

 so long as they have a full larder. The autumn 

 swarms of bluebottles which gather on the sunny 

 walls of houses in frosty weather, sometimes tempt 

 swallows to linger so long, that in the end a failing 

 food-supply leaves them without strength to under- 

 take their southward flight. This has been the case 

 to an unusual degree in the autumns of 1894, 1895, 

 and 1896. In 1894 Mr. Stanley Morris counted, 

 in the neighbourhood of Bognor, Chichester, and 

 Fishbourne, one hundred and thirty-eight swallows 

 and martins during November, and twelve swallows 

 and nine house-martins during December. That 

 was, indeed, an unusually mild autumn the preface 

 to the great frost but in the last week of October 

 1895, Tweedside was sheeted with snow, and a 

 bitter nor'easter howled for more than a week. 

 Yet at the beginning of November there might have 

 been seen the uncommon sight of swallows hawking 



