THE COMMON SWALLOW. 
377 
larised by Mr. Main * as their favourite food. Sir Humphry 
Davy t has “ seen a single swallow take four [Mayflies] in less 
than a quarter of a minute that were descending to the water/* 
Without having actually examined the contents of its stomach, 
I have so often observed the swallow in localities presenting very 
different species of insects, and sweeping in the summer evenings 
through the midst of little congregated parties of various kinds, 
as to be satisfied that its food differs very considerably ; in singu- 
lar corroboration of which, an angling friend once resident near 
the river Lagan, repeatedly captured these birds with artificial 
trout-flies, presenting very different appearances. Izaac Walton 
informs us, that swifts were in his time taken in Italy with the 
rod and line; and according to Washington Irving, one of the 
present sports of the Alhambra, is angling for swallows from its 
lofty towers. J 
My correspondent, Mr. Poole, has found the mouth of the 
young bird filled with Tipulce. In the autumn some years since, 
Wm. Sinclaire, Esq., a most accurate ornithologist, remarked a 
number of swallows flying for a considerable time about two pol- 
lard willows ( Salix fragilis) which served as gate-posts to a field 
at his residence near Belfast, and on going to the place ascertained 
that the object of pursuit was hive-bees, which being especially 
abundant beneath the branches, he had an opportunity of seeing 
the birds capture as they flew within two or three yards of his 
head.§ The insect prey of the swallow and martin kept so near 
* Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. iv. p. 413. f Salmonia. £ Tales of the Alhambra, vol. i. 
§ In the British Naturalist (vol. ii. p. 381) the sand-martin ( H . riparia) is men- 
tioned as preying on the common wasp. In an article in the Field Naturalist’s 
Magazine (March, 1834, p. 125) on the ‘Enemies of the Hive Bee,’ an anonymous 
contributor states, that having observed some swallows seize upon his bees in passing 
the hives in his garden, he shot them, and on opening them carefully, found that 
although “ they were literally crammed with drones, there was not a vestige of a 
working bee.” Instances of the Hirundo rustica preying on bees have been very 
rarely recorded. In a paper read before the Lyceum of New York in 1824, De 
Witt Clinton, in his amiable admiration of the whole tribe of swallows, indig- 
nantly declared that “they are in all respects innocent, and the accusation of Virgil 
that they destroy bees, is known to be unfounded both in this country and in 
Europe.” But from Wilson’s American Ornithology (Jardine’s ed. vol. ii. p. 153) 
we learn, that even in the United States bees constitute part of the ordinary food of 
the purple martin ( Hirundo purpurea ). 
