The present species is common in several of the Swiss valleys. Thus Mr. Scott- 

 Wilson writes : — 



" I saw the Crag-Swallow flying about the perpendicular crags of the Gemmi in 

 June 1885 ; but observed it more particularly, and found it breeding, on the 1st of June, 

 1886, near Meiringen. The two nests I saw were placed against the face of an almost 

 perpendicular crag, about thirty yards from the ground, and I could see the head of the 

 old bird projecting as it sat on the nest; but, alas ! both nests were quite inaccessible 

 from below or from above, as they were placed immediately beneath an overhanging 

 projection of rock. "We watched the birds nearly all day — both when high above with 

 slow undulating flight and when dashing past, catching insects. According to our guide, 

 the Crag-Sw'allows pass the winter here in the Haslithal, hiding in caves and crevices in 

 the rocks ; and he says he has seen them in winter flying about the village of Meiringen. 

 We also saw the bird about the rocks of the Brunig Pass." 



In the Austrian Tyrol it has been found nesting on the Garda Lake, near the town 

 of Eiva, by Von Tschusi zu Schmidhoff'en ; and Mr. Dresser summarizes the notes from 

 tliis neighbourhood as follows : — " Mr. A. PJndfleisch observed sis or eight at the 

 ' Engelswandj' between the villages of Oetz and Umhausen, in September 1853, and also 

 saw it at the Martinswand, near Innsbruck. Mr. Luigi Althammer, in his list of the 

 birds of the Tyrol, speaks of it as arriving later and leaving earlier than H. rustica, 

 breeding in the most precipitous places ; and, according to Bruhin, it breeds annually 

 in the Vorarlberg, close to the ' Hangender Stein,' near Bludenz." 



Many observers have noted the occurrence of the Crag-Swallow in the Pyrenees ; 

 and M. Olphe-Galliard gives the following places in his w^oi'k on the birds of Western 

 Europe : — Basses-Alpes [Bcdllij), Dauphine [Bouteille), Gard ; rocks which border the 

 Garden, and those of Vidourle near St. Hippolyte {Crespon) ; Aude, all the summer; 

 Ariege, May to September; Gers, only in autumn; Herault, April to September; Tarn 

 in Pyrenees, on passage, a few remaining for the summer ; Tarn-et-Garonne, on passage, 

 only in autumn ; Eastern Pyrenees, from the end of April to the end of September. 



Mr. Howard Saunders, writing on the birds of the Pyrenees, says that the Crag- 

 Martin is resident throughout the year from the Pas de Roland, near Cambo, to the 

 gorges of the Eastern Pyrenees. Colonel Irby found it nesting in numbers about the 

 Desfiladero, near La Harmida, in the Santander district. Mr. Eagle Clarke found the 

 bird breeding in the town of Andorra, and we append his notes on the occurrence : — 



" Perhaps the most interesting of our observations related to the breeding of the 

 Crag-Martin (C riipestris) under the eaves of the houses in the centre of the town of 



Andorra Several attempts were made to procure a specimen, but it was found 



most difficult to avoid covering windows and other undesirable objects with the gun, and 

 several snap-shots at the bird failed. The nests, of which we saw four in the town, 

 were placed, in three instances, about three inches below the eaves on the house-side, 

 the fourth being placed on the side of a beam supporting an overhanging roof, which it 

 was just under. The nests were large structures of mud, quite open at the top, and 



