For there are few towns or large villages but what 

 abound with house-martins ; few churches, towers, 

 or steeples, but what are haunted by some swifts : 

 scarce a hamlet or a single cottage-chimney that has 

 not its swallow ; while the bank-martins, scattered 

 here and there, live a sequestered life among some 

 abrupt sand-hills, and in the precipitous banks of 

 some few rivers. 



These birds have a peculiar manner of flying : 

 flitting about with odd jerks, and vacillations, not 

 unlike the motions of a butterfly. Doubtless the 

 flight of all hirimdines is influenced by, and adapted 

 to, the peculiar sort of insects which furnish their 

 food. Hence it would be worth inquiry to examine 

 what particular genus of insects affords the principal 

 food of each respective species of swallow. 



Notwithstanding what has been advanced above, 

 some few sand-martins, I see, haunt the skirts of Lon- 

 don, frequenting the dirty pools in Saint George's 

 Fields, and about Whitechapel. The question is 

 where these build, since there are no banks or bold 

 shores in that neighbourhood : perhaps they nestle 

 in the scaffold holes of some old or new deserted 

 building. They dip and wash as they fly sometimes, 

 like the house-martin and swallow. 



Sand-martins differ from their congeners in the 



diminutiveness of their size, and in their colour, 



which is what is usually called a mouse-colour. 



Near Valencia in Spain, they are taken, says Wil- 



19 



