Hirundo — Hcematopus — Junco 103 



of the breast, distinguish these from the remaining sorts, as 

 Ovid prettily sets forth in these verses : — 



"The other haunts our roofs, nor have the marks of slaughter yet 

 departed from its breast, and its plumage is stained with blood." 



The English call this first kind a Swallow, and the 

 Germans eyn schwalb. 



The Apodes, the greater and the less, compose the second 

 kind. I call greater those very great Swallows that fly in 

 flocks, and higher than the rest, which are never observed 

 to settle on a tree, after the manner of our other Swallows. 

 I call less those which fix their nests to rocks, lofty church 

 windows and the tops of towers. The greater kind the 

 Germans call geyr swalben, and the English the Great 

 Swallowes ; but the less the English call rok martinettes or 

 chirche martnettes, the Germans kirch swalben. 



The third kind, that which breeds in banks, the English 

 name a bank martnet, the Germans eyn ufer swalbe or speiren. 



Of the H^matopodes, from Pliny. 



The Heematopus has its bill and very long legs 

 red, and is much less than the Porphyrio, though of 

 the same height of leg. It is native in Egypt. It 

 stands on three toes to a foot ; flies are its favourite 

 food. It lives in Italy but a few days. 



There is in marshy places in England a certain bird with 

 long red legs, called Redshank in our tongue, but whether 

 the description of the Hsematopus of Pliny agrees with this 

 or not let those who live in England seek out and enquire. 



Of the Junco. 



S%otVt/cXo?, junco, in English a rede sparrow, in German 

 eyn reydt mflss. 



The Junco, as Aristotle writes in the eighth book of his 

 Historj' of Animals, and in the third chapter, lives on the 

 banks of lakes and streams, and flirts its tail continually ; 

 and it is clear from him that it is a small bird, for he makes 



