Peacock : The Birds of North- West Lindsey. 43 



Swallow. Hinindo rustica Linn. Comes every year in 

 great numbers. At Bottesford there were seven nests in one 

 cow-house for years. From the 14th to the 23rd of April is 

 their usual time of arrival ; in 1890 it was as late as the 26th. 

 Much depends on the prevailing wind and temperature. If it 

 is genial weather with south-westerley breezes we may expect 

 them early, but should it be 'a wild north-easter ' and cold, they 

 are very late. A white swallow was hatched, and flew from the 

 Keeper's Lodge, Cadney, 1899. It never returned to the parish. 



House-Martin. Chelidon urbica Linn. Was formerly very 

 plentiful at Bottesford. It arrives, as a rule, about a fortnight 

 after the Swallow. It was very late in 1900. Once a white 

 specimen visited us three seasons running. On a barn at 

 Mamby Hall, in the Eastern Woodlands, I counted 132 nests. 

 No doubt some were old ones of former years, but the numbers 

 of birds coming and going astonished a party of visitors to the 

 Lily Woods. One season in the early seventies — I cannot now 

 fix the date for certain — the weather was unusually cold when 

 these birds arrived in their ordinary numbers. Probably they 

 were weakened for want of sufficient insect food. However 

 that may be, there came a heavy storm of wind and rain from 

 the north-east. During this 'blast' we picked up great numbers 

 drenched and dead, or nearly dead, in the hamlet of Bottesford. 

 About a dozen were found in the Manor House garden. Not a 

 single Swallow was discovered at the same time, though they 

 were in their usual numbers. The House-Martin has never 

 frequented the place to anything like the same extent since, and 

 for some seasons we were almost without it. 



Sand-Martin. Cotile riparia Linn. May be said to be 

 plentiful in suitable localities. At Yaddlethorpe about 100 pairs 

 breed in the gravel pits. During the dry season of 1887, when 

 the Home Close at Bottesford was being mowed, hundreds of 

 Sand-Martins visited the field to take the insects disturbed by 

 the scythes. They breed in the sandy banks of the beck, but 

 till I saw them over the grass I had no idea there were such 

 larj^e numbers about Bottesford. I once roughly measured the 

 work a pair of birds could do on a fresh sand face in a day. 

 The 'drift' was 2.75 inches across by 2.50 inches from the face 

 to the back of the hole. It was shallow cup-shaped. The 

 Vicar and I have often taken the female bird on the nest as lads 

 from the beck bank. The tunnel was about 3 feet long. 



Greenfinch. Ligurinus chloris Linn. Is very common. 

 There is a large immigration in October. In the winters from 



1906 February i. 



