406 HIRUNDINID./E. 



may be presumed that they set out with them on their migration. 

 On a visit to the sand-pit, on the 10th of September, 1840, 

 not a bird was to be seen, but less than a mile distant I saw 

 a few associated with house-martins and swallows, the latter of 

 which especially were abundant.* 



On the 2nd of September, 1842, I observed several of these 

 birds fly into their burrows in a layer of hard sand about two feet 

 in thickness, surmounting the high gravelly bank of a wild 

 mountain stream, before the shooting-lodge at Aberarder, in Inver- 

 ness-shire. 



During a tour to the south of Europe and the Levant, made 

 by the author in the spring and summer of 1841, tins bird was 

 only observed: — On the 9th of April, about the Rhone, between 

 Lyons and Avignon, where very few appeared; on the 17th, when 

 a number were seen about Valetta in Malta, in company with 

 many swallows, house-martins, and swifts; on the 30th, when 

 several were observed between Navarino and Modon. Aristotle 

 having mentioned the sand-martin as frequenting the valleys of 

 Greece, I was much gratified by thus meeting with it in the first 

 valley, or rather defile, of the Morea that I visited. 



Macgillivray's British Birds (vol. iii.) contains a very good de- 

 scription of this species by the author, enriched by valuable con- 

 tributions from Mr. Weir and Mr. Duncan. Audubon gives a 

 very full and interesting account of it as an American species. He 

 remarks : — " The sand-swallow is a rather hardy bird ; for I ob- 

 served, that the transient cold weather that at times occurs in the 

 Floridas at night, seldom forces them to remove farther south. 

 On one occasion, however, when the ice was about the thickness 

 of a dollar, many were found dead along the shores, as well as 

 floating on the water." Orn. Biog., vol. iv. p. 587. 



* Mr. Poole, with reference to the departure of the sand-martin from the county 

 of Wexford, mentions its having heen seen on the 31st of October, but he has not 

 observed its arrival there so early as we have in the north. He remarks, that " they 

 frequent our fields towards the latter end of autumn, though we never see them at 

 any other time," and describes nests which have come under his notice, as being 

 " from twelve to twenty-four inches from the entrance of the cavity ; — composed of fine 

 sea-grass, with a few pieces -of dry grass-stalks ; the burrow, as nearly as may be, hori- 

 zontal, and of almost uniform diameter so far as the nest, where it is enlarged to a globu- 

 lar form. Eggs taken in the middle of May, and first week of June ; five in number." 



