Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 375 



Dr. Jenner (Phil. Trans., vol. cix. p. 24) states that swallows on 

 and for some time after their arrival feed principally on gnats, but 

 that their more favourite food, as well as that of the swift and mar- 

 tin, is a small beetle of the Scarabseus kind, which on dissection 

 he " found in far greater abundance in their stomachs than any- 

 other insects." Two species of gnat, Culex pipiens and C. bifurcatus, 

 are particularised by Mr. Main (Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. iv. p. 413) as 

 their favourite food. Sir Humphry Davy ' Salmonia ' has " seen a 

 single swallow take four [Mayflies] in less than a quarter of a minute 

 that were descending to the water." Without having actually exa- 

 mined the contents of its stomach, I have so often observed the swal- 

 low in localities presenting very different species of insects, and sweep- 

 ing in the summer evenings through the midst of little congregated 

 parties of various kinds, as to be satisfied that its food differs very con- 

 siderably, a singular corroboration of which is, that an angling friend 

 once resident near the river Lagan has repeatedly captured swallows 

 with artificial trout-flies presenting very different appearances*. 



In the autumn a few years since, my friend Wm. Sinclaire, Esq., 

 a most accurate ornithologist, remarked a number of swallows flying 

 for a considerable time about two pollard willows (Salix fragilis) 

 which served as gate-posts to a field at his residence near Belfast, and 

 on going to the place ascertained that the object of pursuit was 

 hive-bees, which being especially abundant beneath the branches, 

 he had an opportunity of seeing the birds capture as they flew within 

 two or three yards of his headf. 



The insect prey of the swallow and martin kept so near the ground 

 on the evening of the 14th of August 1827 — which was fine, after a 

 day of excessive rain — that in its pursuit several birds of both spe- 

 cies were killed with walking-sticks and umbrellas in some of the 

 streets of Belfast J. 



* Isaac Walton informs us, that with the rod and line swifts were in his 

 time taken in Italy. 



f In the ' British Naturalist' (vol. ii. p. 381) the sand martin {H. ripa- 

 ria) is mentioned as preying on the common wasp. In an article in the 

 ' Field Naturalist's Magazine' (March 1834, p. 125) on the 'Enemies of 

 the Hive Bee,' an anonymous contributor states, that having observed some 

 swallows seize upon his bees in passing the hives in his garden, he shot them, 

 and on opening them carefully, found that although "they were literally 

 crammed with drones, there was not a vestige of a working bee." Instances 

 of the Hirando rustica preying on bees have been very rarely recorded. In 

 a paper read before the Lyceum of New York in 1824, De Witt Clinton, in 

 his amiable admiration of the whole tribe of swallows, indignantly declared 

 that " they are in all respects innocent, and the accusation of Virgil that 

 they destroy bees is known to be unfounded both in this country and in 

 Europe." But from Wilson's ' American Ornithology ' (Jardine's ed. vol. ii. 

 p. 153) we learn, that even in the United States, bees constitute part of the 

 ordinary food of the purple martin (Hirundo purpurea). 



I In the year 1838, I was informed by a bird-preserver here, that he had 

 at different times received not less than twenty swallows which had been 

 killed in the streets with walking-sticks or rudely formed whips used by mis- 

 chievous boys. 



