departure each way towards Europe or Africa. It is 

 therefore no mean discovery, I think, to find that our 

 small short-winged summer birds of passage are to 

 be seen spring and autumn on the very skirts of Eu- 

 rope ; it is a presumptive proof of their emigrations. 



Scopoli seems to me to have found the Hirundo 

 melba, the great Gibraltar swift, in Tyrol, without 

 knowing it. For what is his Hirundo alpina but the 

 afore-mentioned bird in other words? Says he, '* It 

 has all the quaUties of the preceding, save that the 

 breast is white ; it is a little larger than the former; " 

 " Omnia prioris " (meaning the swift) ; '' sed pectus 

 album ; paulo major priore." I do not suppose this 

 to be a new species. It is true also of the melba, that 

 *' it builds on the lofty Alpine cliffs ; " " nidificat in 

 excelsis Alpium rupibus." Vide "Annum Primum." 



My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good 

 sense, but no naturalist, to whom I applied on ac- 

 count of the stone-curlew {pedicnemus), sends me the 

 following account : — " In looking over my ' Natural- 

 ist's Journal ' for the month of April, I find the stone- 

 curlews are first mentioned on the 17th and i8th, 

 which dates seem to me rather late. They live with 

 us all the spring and summer, and at the beginning 

 of autumn prepare to take leave by getting together 

 in flocks. They seem to me a bird of passage that 

 may travel into some dry hilly country south of us, 

 probably Spain, because of the abundance of sheep- 

 walks in that country ; for they spend their summers 



150 



