SAND-MARTIN. 
noticed numbers of these birds rearing their young in the banks of a small island in the river Lyon in the 
des t7 t, W V , The foll0 ™ S y eai ' 1 was sal 'P™ed to their accustomed quarters entirely 
T U ’ OT ' S ‘ scarcll<!d the island on two or three occasions, I never detected a single bird. Early in 
June however, we were visited by a terrible downpour of rain, which caused a heavy spate all over the district. 
CU ' . 10 St ° rm ’ tllC hlll ' burns rushed down like mountain-torrents into the river, carrying before the 
flood a floating mass of debris that swept the shores and destroyed the whole of the crops in its course. Cattle, 
m two or three instances, were overtaken and drowned ; and I well remember landing, by a cast of the phantom 
minnow, the carcass of a fine ram, which was coming down the river with the first of the spate. The island on 
which the Martins bred was entirely covered to a depth of three or four feet, the very banks being in some 
parts torn away by the force of the current and the stumps and roots hurled against them. Though I 
occasionally noticed a few of the birds in the glen during the summer, I was unable to discover where they 
had louild fi’csli quarters. A few returned the next spring to their old haunts; but since that date I have been 
absent from the locality, and I am ignorant whether it is still a resort of this interesting and useful species. 
