THE COMMON SWALLOW. 377 



larised by Mr. Main * as their favourite food. Sir Humphry 

 Davy f has " seen a single swallow take four [Mayflies] in less 

 than a quarter of a minute that were descending to the water." 

 Without having actually examined the contents of its stomach, 

 I have so often observed the swallow in localities presenting very 

 different species of insects, and sweeping in the su mm er evenings 

 through the midst of little congregated parties of various kinds, 

 as to be satisfied that its food differs very considerably ; in singu- 

 lar corroboration of which, an angling friend once resident near 

 the river Lagan, repeatedly captured these birds with artificial 

 trout-flies, presenting very different appearances. Izaac Walton 

 informs us, that swifts were in Ins time taken in Italy with the 

 rod and line ; and according to Washington Irving, one of the 

 present sports of the Alhambra, is angling for swallows from its 

 lofty towers. J 



My correspondent, Mr. Poole, has found the mouth of the 

 young bird filled with Tipuhe. In the autumn some years since, 

 Wm. Sinclaire, Esq., a most accurate ornithologist, remarked a 

 number of swallows flying for a considerable time about two pol- 

 lard willows {Salix fragilis) which served as gate-posts to a field 

 at his residence near Belfast, and on going to the place ascertained 

 that the object of pursuit was hive-bees, which being especially 

 abundant beneath the branches, he had an opportunity of seeing 

 the birds capture as they flew within two or tliiee yards of Ins 

 head.§ The insect prey of the swallow and martin kept so near 



* Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. iv. p. 413. f Salmonia. % Tales of the Alhambra, vol. i. 



§ In the British Naturalist (vol. ii. p. 381) the sand-martin (H. riparia) is men- 

 tioned as preying on the common wasp. In an article in the Field Naturalist's 

 Magazine (March, 1834, p. 125) on the 'Enemies of the Hive Bee,' an anonymous 

 contributor states, that having observed some swallows seize upon his bees in passing 

 the hives in his garden, he shot them, and on opening them carefully, found that 

 although " they were literally crammed with drones, there was not a vestige of a 

 working bee." Instances of the Hirundo rustica preying on bees have been very 

 rarely recorded. In a paper read before the Lyceum of New York in 1824, De 

 Witt Clinton, in his amiable admiration of the whole tribe of swallows, indig- 

 nantly declared that " they are in all respects innocent, and the accusation of Virgil 

 that they destroy bees, is known to be unfounded both in this country and in 

 Europe." But from Wilson's American Ornithology (Jardine's ed vol. ii. p. 153) 

 wc learn, that even in the United States bees constitute part of the ordinary food of 

 the purple martin (Hirundo purpurea). 



