2606 Birds. 



them constantly winging their spirit-like flight over the bosom of the 

 waters, and occasionally dipping into the surface to drink or capture 

 an aquatic insect. I find by my journal that they usually commence 

 excavating their holes about three weeks or a month after their arrival, 

 and that they can mine two or three inches in a day. A person who 

 worked at the bank well described the earnest manner with which 

 they labour, in these words, — " they do fettle away ; " and " fettle 

 away" they must, for I have known them complete a cavity of four 

 feet in sixteen days, which is somewhere about the time that the 

 common martin requires to erect her nest of mud. The weight of 

 sand mined in a day (which may easily be noted, by being of a deeper 

 colour than that which has laid to be dried in the sun) is from sixteen 

 to twenty ounces. Whilst holding a sand martin in my hand, I have 

 often been struck with the beak of this bird, which bears a striking 

 resemblance to the point of a collier's pickaxe, being hard, strong and 

 finely pointed, and admirably adapted for the purpose for which it is 

 designed. 1 have seen holes bored in layers of gravel which intersect 

 the bank, during the working of which the birds had removed pebbles 

 upwards of two ounces in weight. 



Swift {Hirundo Apus). A pair of swifts has inhabited a particular 

 hole in a cottage for more than twenty summers, during which period 

 the nest has contained two, three, and four eggs. 



Nightjar (Caprimulgus Europceus). In 1844 two individuals were 

 killed near Donnington Park, whilst hawking for insects at mid-day. 

 The spot where they were found was by the side of a large wood, the 

 birds probably having been tempted from their hiding-places by the 

 resemblance of the gloom to the dusk of the evening. They are not 

 found after September. 



Ring Dove [Columba palumbus). Our woods and dark planta- 

 tions of fir trees are inhabited by large flocks of the ring dove, or, as 

 it is here called, the c wood pigeon,' which spread themselves over the 

 adjoining country, and commit serious damage upon most kinds of 

 agricultural produce. Between seed-time and harvest they may be 

 seen in small parties, half buried in the long grass of pastures, foraging 

 for food : at this time they subsist principally upon the panicles of 

 wild grasses. About July, when the wheat is fully in ear and the corn 

 has become milky, these birds are terribly destructive : they come in 

 parties, and, settling down upon such parts of the corn as are "laid" 

 by wind and rain, pick out quantities of grain. I have frequently cut 

 open the crops of such birds as have been shot from wheat-fields, and 

 have taken out half a pint of young corn. In winter they repair to 



