THE SMALLER INLAND BIRDS. 



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movements of the Hitundimdce or swallow tribe. 

 And there is about them a certain air of mystery, 

 for, though we know the winter resort of the few, we 

 know not where the great majority are to be accounted 

 for during the long months of cold weather in 

 England. But this also we do know, that after an 

 absence amounting to half the entire year, they have 

 the charming habit of returning to the very spot 

 which they or their young ones left the year before ; 

 and this after a search for sun and warmth of, at 

 least, one thousand miles, for I believe that few of 

 them venture to pass the winter north of the latitude 

 of the extreme South of Spain. My father and my- 

 self, when at Gibraltar some seven years ago, observed 

 swallows " hawking " for flies during the month of 

 January, when the thermometer was as high as the 

 average of an English summer, but probably the birds 

 knew, if any hard weather came on, that the sun- 

 burnt wastes of Africa were not an hour's flight 

 away. 



SWIFT. A summer visitor. Fairly numerous. 



MARTIN. A summer migrant. Plentiful. 



SAND MARTIN. There are at least three different colonies of these 

 little birds in Formby, whose nests are in the holes 

 in the side of a steep sand "cleft," from which the 

 farmers have cut their peat. 



GREENFINCH. Common, and breeds plentifully all over the parish. 

 HOUSE SPARROW. Needless to state he is very common. 



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