8824 



Birds. 



of plumage precludes the idea that they had been confined in the strait quarters of a 

 small cage.— J. C. Atkinson. 



Slate-coloured Variety of the Chimney Sivallow. — A week or two since I had sent 

 for my inspection the most beautiful slate-coloured variety of this species I ever saw. 

 It was of an uniform slate-gray colour, slightly clouded, and very indistinctly barred 

 with a slightly darker hue. The under part of the throat faintly marked with very 

 light chesnut; the ordinary bar of spot-like white markings was quite visible if held 

 in certain lights. The eyes were light hazel ; tarsus whitish brown ; beak of the latter 

 colour. The whole under portions of its plumage were of a light dirty white. I am 

 aware that white and nearly white varieties of the two cognate species are not of un- 

 frequent occurrence ; but these are so frequently designated by the ordinary cognomen 

 " Altin's swallow" that I deemed the note of a slate-coloured Hirundo rustica would 

 not prove uninteresting. It was shot at Stretham, Cambridgeshire, one day last month. 

 — S. P. Saville ; Dover House, Cambridge, October, 1863. 



A Swallow turning Pirate. — 1 was very much amused, a few days since, while 

 watching one of my little favourites, the Motacilla campestris, which was busily en- 

 gaged seeking for its food upon the grass opposite my residence. A swallow which 

 chanced to swoop leisurely past darted and caught up what I imagined to be a larva. 

 The wagtail in the most plucky manner darted after the impudent offender, and 

 chased him for at least a minute or two. Whether my little favourite succeeded in 

 recapturing his dainty morsel I was unable to determine. — Id. 



Scarcity of Swallows. — The scarcity of swallows has been alluded to by several 

 writers in the ' Zoologist.' As far as the martins are concerned it may be accounted 

 for in this way : — Since I resided where I am at preseut I have encouraged the mar- 

 tins to build a few nests round my upper windows ; but the moment these birds had 

 finished their nests the sparrows took possession, and but for my assistance my friends 

 the martins never could have hatched a single brood : the pertinacity with which 

 those lazy, impudent birds, the sparrows, endeavoured to keep possession of their 

 ready-made houses was remarkable; when one was killed, in a couple of days another 

 helpmate made his or her appearance to make up the pair of robbers ; and this con- 

 tinued from about the 5th or 6th of May until the first week in August, and during 

 the whole of this time the martins were annoyed, even after they had laid their eggs 

 and during incubation. The finishing of the martins' nests each time they built was 

 carefully watched by the sparrows, which took possession immediately after comple- 

 tion. In each year since May, I860, I have destroyed about five couples of sparrows. 

 No wonder that the martins are diminished in number, when in thousands of houses 

 they have no chance of having a brood until August or September, when their 

 intruders have finished their two or three hatches of young sparrows, and have taken 

 flight for the wheat-fields. What will the small-bird preservers say to this, my true 

 and unvarnished tale ! The common chimney swallow is not quite so subject to the 

 intrusion above mentioned, as most of them build their nests several feet under the 

 entrance of a chimney-top, in the summer, where no fires are kept; but many of their 

 young ones are lost, in their first attempt to rise in a straight direction, by falling 

 to the bottom of the chimneys. I have during my life extricated some when they have 

 been heard fluttering near the fire-places in my bed-rooms. Those wonderful birds the 

 swifts are not subject to these trespasses, but sometimes they are destroyed by rats or 

 mice. The swallow tribe is venerated by most people who delight in ornithological 

 Natural History ; they are the harbingers of spring, and arrive, weather permitting, at 



