84 COTYLE RIPARIA. 



besides more than a hundred Spiroptera alatce within the membranes of 

 the stomach, several hundreds of the Holostommn excavatum in the smaller 

 intestine, a hundred of the Distoma ferox in the large intestine, twenty- 

 two of the Distoma Mans in the oesophagus, and a Distoma echinatum in 

 the small intestine ; yet the bird did not appear to be in the least 

 inconvenienced." 



Mr. John Wolley (in the ' Ootheca WoUeyana,' edited by Alfred Newton, 

 M.A. &c., p- 19) relates an amusing adventure with the fleas of the Golden 

 Eagle, though he does not determine the species. He jumps into a nest of 

 that bird, and says : — " Resting on my hands and knees, I felt, as I thought, 

 a lot of flies crawling on my hands. On closer inspection, I saw they were 

 fleas, and my arms and legs were swarming with them. I beat a retreat. . . . 

 With the help of flint and steel a fire was made with moss and heather ; and 

 I stripped to the skin. After an hour or two's hard picking and smoking, the 

 clothes were handed over to me, one by one, as I sat at some distance, and I 

 extracted a few score more, but still put many around me." 



In one or two cases, at Sandy, the Sand- Martins had been obhged to 

 yield their habitations to Starlings ; and a similar instance is mentioned in the 

 ' Zoologist,' 3rd ser. July 1877, p. 301, by Mr. C. Matthew Prior (Bedford) :— 

 " I was greatly surprised one day, in passing a sand-pit, to find that Starlings 

 had taken possession of all the Sand-Martin's holes. On coming again a 

 month later, most of the birds had young ones. It was very amusing to see 

 the way in which they entered the hole: on getting about 150 yards from 

 the entrance, they sailed gracefully into it, giving a few hurried flaps with 

 their wings on gaining the aperture." 



It is curious that a Robin should seize a Sand-Martin's nest ; but so 

 we find in Mr. Dresser's 'Birds of Europe' (part xxxii, September 1874, 

 Cotijk riparia, p. 6), on the authority of Mr. Cecil Smith, who has a quarry 



