BANK SWALLOW. 
17 
We observed the arrival of this bird for several years together, in 
Wiltshire, to be from the twenty-first of April to the tenth of May. 
It is not uncommon in the north of that county, and is easily dis- 
covered by its shrill note, which is scarcely to be called a song, as it is 
only a re23etition of the same whistling note,* (actch, atsJi, as Bechstein 
gives it),* several times in a hurried manner ; besides which it has a soft 
pleasing song, not to be heard unless very near. It conceals itself in the 
thickest hedges, and when the foliage is complete, is very difficult to be 
shot. In such situations, the nest is |3laced not very distant from the 
ground, composed of goose grass, neatly but flimsily put together, with 
a small quantity of wool, very much like that of the white-throat. The 
eggs are four or five in number, of a bluish white, speckled with brown 
and ash colour at the larger end, and sometimes a few distant sj^ots all 
over ; their weight about twenty-five grains. 
*The nest from which our figure was taken, was built low in a bram- 
ble bush in Kent ; but I have seen them, in filbert trees, at several feet 
above the ground, as well as in the black-thorn, goosei)erry, and broom. 
The goose ”grass, ( Valantia Aparine,^ figured also in our vignette, 
seems an indispensable material for the nest, its reversed and close-set 
short prickles hooking firmly together, and holding fast what seems so 
flimsy and frail. I have found the eggs vary very much in shade, as 
well as in marking ; Montagu’s account of them is as near as a general 
description could well be given.* 
The Babillard does not appear to be a j)lentiful species in this country, 
and is confined to the western parts of the kingdom, from Gloucester- 
shire and Wiltshire, in both which counties we have found them, and is 
probably in part of Somersetshire, but not in Devonshire or Cornwall. 
* Selby even doubts its existence ; but Sweet has kept them in a cage 
for years.* 
* In some seasons it is very plentiful about London ; at other times 
much scarcer. I am confident I have seen it in Ayrshire, and at Mus- 
selburgh Haugh, near Edinburgh.* 
BALBUSARDUS. — -*A name for the Osprey, adopted by Fleming 
for a new genus. * 
BALD BUZZARD. — A name for the Osprey. 
BALD COOT. — A provincial name for the Coot. 
BALD GOOSE. — A name for the Laughing Goose. 
BANK SWALLOW {Hirundo ripariaj Linnaeus.) 
* Hirundo riparia, Linn. Syst. 1. p. 344. 4. — Faun. Suec. No. 273.- — Gmel, Syst. 
1. p. 1019.— Lat/i. Ind, Orn. 2. p. 575. 10. — Raii, Syn, p. 71. A, 3. — Will. p. 
156, t. 39. — Briss. 2. p. 506. — Wils. Amer. Orn. 5. p. 46. pi. 38. f. 4.— 
Ti’Hirondelle de Rivage, Buff. Ois. 6. p. ^2. — Ih. PL Enl. 543. f. 2. the 
c 
