OF SELBORNE. 201 



Though in some particular districts they may happen to 

 abound, yet in the whole, in the south of England at least, 

 is this much the rarest species. 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 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 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 Hirundines 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 afford s the prin- 

 cipal food of each respective species of swallow. 



Notwithstanding what has been advanced above, some 

 few sand martins, I see, haunt the skirts of London, fre- 

 quenting the dirty pools in St. 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 some- 

 times, like the house martin and swallow. 



Sand martins differ from their congeners in the diminutive- 

 ness of their size and in their colour, which is what is usu- 

 ally called a mouse colour. Near Valencia, in Spain, they 

 are taken, says Willughby, and sold in the markets for the 

 table ; and are called by the country people, probably from 

 their desultory jerking manner of flight, Papilion di mon- 

 tagna. 1 



1 Mr. Howard Saunders, in his " List of the Birds of Southern Spain " 

 ("Ibis," 1871, p. 205), says: "To my surprise I found this species 

 nesting in the banks of the Guadalquivir in May. I had imagined it was 

 a more noithern breeder." ED 



