20 



BANK SWALLOW. 



forwardness for next spring-, — supposes they may have been abandoned 

 on account of the soil proving- either too hard or too loose. It appears 

 more probable, I think, that some accident may in such cases have 

 befallen the birds ; for they seem to be always careful in choosing the 

 sort of bank best suited for their mode of mining-. In most of the 

 numerous localities which I have examined, they always made choice 

 of a very hard bed of alluvial sand, in an escarpment either facing- a 

 river, a quarry, or a sand-pit, and from ten to thirty feet from the base, 

 being- evidently most in fear of enemies from below ; while above I 

 have often seen their g-alleries within a foot of the surface. When the 

 escarpment again is very high, they prefer a middle height, an instance 

 of which occurs at the chalk-pit, behind the Hanging Wood at Charlton, 

 in Kent.* 1 



Sometimes they build in old walls, and, we are told, in hollows of 

 trees. The nest is composed of straw and dried fibres, lined with fea- 

 thers. *It is common in the Orkneys.* 



The eggs are four or five in number, quite white, like those of the 

 window swallow, but rather smaller; weighing about twenty-two grains. 



The manners of this species is much like that of the window 

 swallow, and they are often seen in company together, skimming over 

 water in pursuit of gnats and other subaquatic insects. 



*The remark of White and Wilson, that the Bank Swallow shuns 

 human neighbourhood, does not accord at all with my observations. 

 " It is," says White, " fera naturd, at least in this part of the king- 

 dom, disclaiming all domestic attachments, and haunting wild heaths 

 and commons ; while the other species are remarkably gentle and 

 domesticated, and never seem to think themselves safe but under the 

 protection of man. There are in this parish, in the sand-pits and 

 banks of the lakes of Wolmer Forest, several colonies of these birds, 

 and yet they are never seen in the village, nor do they at all frequent 

 the cottages that are scattered about in that wild district 2 ." Wilson 

 also says that it % appears to be the least intimate with man of all our 

 swallows." 3 



On the contrary, the colony above-mentioned at Charlton in Kent, 

 is in the vicinity of a number of cottages, while two lime-kilns are in 

 constant operation just below the bank. A colony again at Catrine 

 in Ayrshire, is not only within a few yards of a party of quarry-men 

 constantly at work, but is not a gunshot from a row of nearly a hun- 

 dred houses, close by the doors of which I have seen the birds 



1 Architecture of Birds, p. 21. 2 Nat. Hist, of Selborne, ii. 297. 



3 American Ornithology, p. 46. 



