104 
NATURAL HISTORY 
months ; and retiring in parties and broods towards the south 
at the decline of the year : so that the rock of Gibraltar is 
the great rendezvous, and place of observation, from whence 
they take their departure each way towards Europe or Africa. 
It is therefore no mean discovery, I think, to find that our 
small short- winged summer birds of passage are to be seen 
spring and autumn on the very skirts of Europe; it is a 
presumptive proof of their emigrations. 
Scopoli seems to me to have found the Hirundo melha,^ 
the great Gibraltar swift, in Tyrol, without knowing it. 
For what is his Hirundo alpina but the afore-mentioned 
bird in other words ? Says he, " Omnia prioris^' (meaning 
the swift) ; sed pectus album ; paulo major prioi^e," I do 
not suppose this to be a new species. It is true also of 
melha, that nidificat in excelsis Allium rujjibus." Vid, 
Annum Primmn. 
My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good sense, 
but no naturalist, to whom I applied on account of the stone 
€urlew (CEdicnemus) , sends me the following account: *'In 
looking over my Naturalist's Journal for the month of April, 
I find the stone curlews are first mentioned on the 17th and 
18th, which date seems to me rather late. They live with 
us all the spring and summer, and at the beginning of 
autumn prepare to take leave by getting together in flocks. 
They seem to me a bird of passage that may travel into 
some dry hilly country south of us, probably Spain, because 
of the abundance of sheep-walks in that country ; for they 
spend their summers with us in such districts. This con- 
jecture I hazard, as I have never met with any one that has 
seen them in England in the winter.^ I believe they are 
* Cypselus melha, 111. {Cyps. alpinus^ Temm.) Stragglers of thit 
species, tlie large white-bellied swift, have occurred, in several instances, 
in the British islands. A score of such instances will be found enume- 
rated in the "Handbook of British Birds," pp. 125, 126.— Ed. 
2 One of the most interesting facts in connection with Cornish ornith- 
ology is that the stone curlew, which is usually met with in other parts 
of England as a summer visitant, is never seen in the Lizard and Land's 
End districts except in winter, and in the opinion of Mr. Rodd (" List 
Brit. Birds," 2nd ed. 1869, p. 5) the only way to account for this devia- 
