SEPTEMBER 179 



the year, perches tamely on the wire fence of the 

 paddock long after its elders have gone, proof sufficient 

 that, in this case at least, migration is independent 

 of leadership, for, when its time comes, it will find the 

 palms and temples of the south as easily as if personally 

 conducted. Swallows and House Martins are still 

 with us, and should be seen well into October, but, if 

 rough, chilly weather sets in, they are ready to ante- 

 date their time of departure, and, after struggling 

 against the wind for a day or two, sometimes hawking 

 low to pick up insects from the herbage, they will 

 leave in a body before September is out, not unfre- 

 quently abandoning a belated brood or two in the nest. 

 Of the myriads which leave us how small a proportion 

 returns in the spring, bearing witness to the perils which 

 beset the migratory flight, and lending countenance to 

 the generally-expressed opinion that both swallows 

 and martins decrease in number from year to year. 

 One may take comfort in seeing the Sand Martins still 

 swarming about their burrows in the soft sand and 

 gravel cliffs of the East coast, so exactly fitted for their 

 tunnelling that they seem to flourish there as nowhere 

 else, and in counting one hundred and ninety nests 

 of the House Martin under the eaves of a large Essex 

 flour-mill, but the stress of wet and chilly summers 

 falls upon them heavily, as also the persecution to which, 

 when nesting, they are subjected at the hands of the 

 common house-sparrow, hence their failure to hold 



