SWALLOW TRIBE. 89 
tain dead nestlings of various sizes*, and from another 
two eggs were taken, whose contents very evidently 
showed that they had been forsaken when on the 
point of being hatched. The nestlings collected on 
this occasion did not, it is true, exceed ten, which 
may be thought few when compared with the number 
of nests they occupied; but the second and third 
sets of eggs produced by those House-Martins which 
lay several times in a season, it should be recollected, 
only average three and two respectively ; and even 
these may not all be prolific. 
The Sand-Martin, I believe, has never been sus- 
pected of forsaking its progeny; yet, that it some- 
times does abandon them, I have clearly ascertained 
by repeated inspections of the nests of that species 
during the winter months. 
Whether the Swift, whose general habits are so 
dissimilar to those of the British Hirundines, ever 
deserts its young, I have not been able to determine, 
as it is rather a scarce bird in the neighbourhood of 
Manchester, and usually builds its nest in situations 
to which I have no access. That this may sometimes 
happen, however, in cases of extreme urgency, seems 
probable from an anecdote related by Mr. White in 
* The extremely flattened appearance of some of these young 
birds, especially the smaller ones, which I was quite unable to 
account for, greatly excited my attention. I soon learned, how- 
ever, that it was occasioned by the pressure of the Sparrows 
which every night took up their lodgings in the nests. 
