OF SELBOBNE, 
201 
Tliougli in some particular districts they may happen to 
abound, yet in the whole, in the south of England at least, 
is this much the rarest species. For there are few towns 
or large villages but what abound with house martins ; few 
churches, towers, or steeples but what are haunted by some 
swifts ; scarce a hamlet or single cottage chimney that has 
not its swallow ; while the bank martins, scattered here and 
there, live a sequestered life among some abrupt sand hills, 
and in the banks of some few rivers. 
These birds have a peculiar manner of flying; flitting 
about with odd jerks and vacillations, not unlike the motions 
of a butterfly. Doubtless the flight of all Hirundines is 
influenced by and adapted to the peculiar sort of insects 
which furnish their food. Hence, it would be worth inquiry 
to examine what particular genus of insects aff'ords the prin- 
cipal food of each respective species of swallow. 
^Notwithstanding what has been advanced above, some 
few sand martins, I see, haunt the skirts of London, fre- 
quenting the dirty pools in St. George's Fields, and about 
Whitechapel. The question is where these build, since 
there are no banks or bold shores in that neighbourhood : 
perhaps they nestle in the scafi'old-holes of some old or new 
deserted building. They dip and wash as they fly some- 
times, like the house martin and swallow. 
Sand martins difier from their congeners in the diminutive- 
ness of their size and in their colour, which is what is usu- 
ally called a mouse colour. Near Valencia, in Spain, they 
are taken, says Willughby, and sold in the markets for the 
table ; and are called by the country people, probably from 
their desultory jerking manner of flight, Papilion di mon- 
tagna} 
^ Mr. Howard Saunders, in his " List of the Birds of Southern Spain '* 
("Ibis," 1871, p. 205), says: — "To my surprise I found this species 
nesting in the banks of the Guadalquivir in May. I had imagined it was 
a more noi thorn breeder." — Ed 
