RAPIDITY -OF FLIGHT. 81 
Most travellers who have visited Constantinople by the 
passage of the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmora, may 
have noticed a bird not quite so large as a Pigeon, abundant 
in that neighbourhood, though occasionally seen in other 
parts of the Archipelago, as at Napoli and Yourla, which 
must have excited their curiosity and surprise. “ Every 
day,” says one of the many authors who have noticed it, 
“ they are to he seen in numerous flocks, passing up and 
down the Bosphorus with great rapidity. When they arrive 
either at the Black Sea or Sea of Marmora, they again wheel 
about, and return up the channel, and this course they con- 
tinue, without a moment’s intermission, the whole day. They 
are never seen to alight, either on land or water ; they never 
for a moment deviate from their course, or slacken their speed; 
are never known to search for, or take any food; and no 
visible cause can he assigned for the extraordinary and rest- 
less instinct by which they are haunted. They fly very near 
the surface of the water; and if a boat meets a flock of them, 
they either rise a few feet over it, or it divides them like a 
wedge. Their flight is remarkably silent; and though so 
numerous and so close, the whirr of their wings is scarcely 
ever heard. They are so abundant in the Sea of Marmora 
that near twenty flocks have been counted in -the passage of 
a few miles. One reason why they have escaped the close 
attention of naturalists is, that no person is permitted to kill 
any bird upon the Bosphorus without incurring the displeasure 
of the Turks, who although very indifferent as to the lives of 
human beings, are extremely averse to take away the lives 
of animals.”^ 
Such is the singular account given by an intelligent 
traveller, to which we are enabled to add a few particulars, 
partly confirming and partly contradicting it. The bird is 
called by the Turks, Armidau, and has been, hitherto, 
erroneously considered a Kingfisher ,f from which species it 
is, however, far removed, proving, on examining a beautiful 
* Walsh’s Constantinople. See also Sketches in Greece. 
f In Andreossi’s work, Sur le Bosphore , it is termed Halcyon Yoya- 
»£eur. 
Gr 
