The Zoologist— July, 1807. 817 



were chasing each other incessantly across the hedges of a green lane, 

 then up into a tree, then off again as quick as thought. 



May 5. Nine sand martins at the round pond in Blackheath Park. 

 At 5.30. p.m. saw two house martins in front of the gravel-pits by 

 Vanbro' Park. Then came a pair of sand martins. In half an hour 

 there were four house martins, then six, and about 6.45. p.m. I counted 

 nine house martins. A fine day, wind S.E. 



May 6. A fine warm summer day, with a soft sweet south-west air 

 and clear sky. Through the fields to Eltham. Saw one house martin. 

 Swallows about in numbers. To Mottingham. Saw a beautiful tree 

 pipit feeding quite close to me on a bare railway-bank ; its colour was 

 all the shades of drab : its tail kept moving like a wagtail. It flew into 

 a tree and sang. This is the connecting link with the wagtails. On 

 returning to Eltham the swallows were chasing each other in pairs, 

 and perching in pairs on the chimneys. While looking at them in the 

 air, about 6 p.m., I noticed one larger than usual, then came a side 

 roll aud a turn, and there were the cheese-cutting wings of the swift. 

 I watched him soaring over Eltham for fifteen minutes, then saw two ; 

 in ten minutes niore there were four swifts. Saw a pair of house 

 martins aud about twenty swallows. None of the Eltham folks had 

 seen the swifts ; one, who had uot seen me for a year, and felt dis- 

 appointed at my first seeing them, told me I must have brought them 

 with me. 



May 8. At Kidbrooke Farm a yellow wagtail flew by me : I could 

 not find it again. It is some twenty years since I saw a yellow wagtail 

 in the same field. Although I got into the whins on the west face of 

 Shooter's Hill as often as bad weather and worse health would permit, 

 I did not meet with the only whinchat I have seen this season till this 

 day. In the middle of the day, all along the noble trees in Eltham 

 Park, I tried to find the flycatcher. On coming away, at 5 P. M., near 

 the entrance, I saw a bird dart out of a lime tree for a fly : I waited till 

 it flew to a bare branch, up with the glass, and there was the dapper, 

 dark-eyed little flycatcher. I saw him dart down on his prey in the 

 grass, and then take a few more flies from the trees. No bird makes 

 so quick a turn and so acute an angle as the flycatcher. One swift 

 with two house martins were hawking very high over Eltham. 



May 10. Saw a flycatcher under a few elms, where I often watched 

 him last year. 



May 13. Never saw so many sand martins in this neighbourhood ; 

 at least a dozen were over the round pond, and nine over the long 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. II. 2 P 



