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



The swallow is one of the very earliest of British birds in com- 

 mencing its morning song. About midsummer it is begun oc- 

 casionally before half-past two o'clock. It is also continued late in 

 the season. On the 13th of Sept. 1833, I heard one when perched 

 beside its nest sing in as fine mellow tone as early in the summer ; 

 and on Sept. 2nd another year, out of a number congregated on a 

 house-roof, several were engaged in going over their amorous notes. 

 On the 10th of Sept. 1841, two passing near me sang sweetly as 

 they flew in company with a number of others. 



Common as it is to see the Hirundines follow in the train of birds 

 of prey, I never but in the following instance saw any of them turned 

 upon. On the 22nd of September 1832, when walking in the garden at 

 Wolf hill*, near Belfast, with a friend, a kestrel (Falco Tinnuaculus) in 

 close pursuit of a swallow appeared in sight over the hedgerow, and 

 continuing the chase with extreme ferocity, lost not the least way 

 by the swallow's turnings, but kept within about a foot of it all the 

 time, at one moment passing within five or six yards of our heads. 

 It is idle to conjecture how long the chase may have lasted before 

 we witnessed it ; but immediately on the kestrel's giving it up, 

 the swallow nothing daunted became again, accompanied by many 

 of its species, its pursuer and tormentor, and so continued until they 

 all disappeared from our view. The kestrel was probably driven to 

 this chase by the particular annoyance of the swallows, as they and 

 the martins were more numerous that day at Wolf hill than they had 

 been at any time during the season. On returning from a pursuit of 

 this kind, I have often remarked, as Mr. Main has done (Mag. of 

 Nat. Hist., vol. iv. p. 413), that these birds "unite in a song [ap- 

 parently] of gratulatory exultation." 



We read of the martin {H. urbica) being the most partial to, and 

 dependent upon man of all its tribe, but from a partial view only can 

 such a conclusion be drawn. The martin, it is true, often claims for 

 its nest the protection of the same roof that covers man himself, but it 

 also selects for its domicile the wildest and most stupendous preci- 

 pices. On the other hand, I know not any instance of the swallow 

 selecting for its nest anyplace removed from man's direct influence. 

 The situations usually chosen in the north of Ireland are sheds, gate- 

 ways and outhouses of every kind, the site once determined on being 

 generally occupied for a series of years. All other nestling-places 

 which have come under my own observation, and so far as I recol- 

 lect to have read, were within the sphere of man's worksf. In the 

 north of Ireland I have never known the nest of the swallow to be built 

 in chimneys, although, on account of its predilection for building 

 within them, the species has received the name of chimney swallow 



* See foot-note to Swift in one of the following pages. 



f Subsequently Mr. Hepburn has stated, that he has " seen nests of this 

 species on the rocks about Tantallon Castle, opposite the Bass." — Macgil- 

 livray's British Birds, vol. iii. p. 569. 



Sir Wm. Jardine mentions the H. urbica as building in this locality, in 

 his edition of Wilson's Amer. Orn., vol. iii. p. 320. 



