Il 6 PICTURES OF BIRD LIFE. 
Hirundinidce , set forth, with much acumen and abundance of loving enthusiasm, 
for Swallows were White’s favourite birds, and he was constantly occupied in 
noting their characteristics and habits. But he was possessed with a preconceived 
idea that they were able to pass the winter in a torpid state, either under the eaves 
of houses, in caves and the like, or else under water. Dr. Johnson characteristically 
enunciated the same belief:—“ Swallows certainly sleep all the winter. A number 
of them conglobulate together, and then all in a heap throw themselves under 
water, and lie in the bed of a river.”* The naturalists of this century hold that 
this is a figment, and that all our Swallows simply migrate with autumn to warmer 
countries ; but it is still an article of popular folk-lore. Indeed, wherever the 
Swallow is found, that is in most of the countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa, it 
is a migratory bird. Ours depart for Algeria or Egypt. The common Swift is 
found in Cashmere, and visits the Punjaub in the rains. The Sand Martin is 
seen but rarely on the Ganges and the Sutlej. Our House Martin frequents the 
Neilgherries in small numbers, while Jerdon tells us the “Chimney Swallow is 
found over the whole continent of India and Ceylon, but is only a cold-weather 
visitant, leaving the south of India towards the end of March, but lingering in 
the north till May. The birds that visit India probably breed in the central and 
northern portions of Eastern Asia.”f 
Referring the reader for fuller particulars of our Swallows to White's “ Selborne,” 
it is now time to describe them specially, beginning with the little Sand Martin 
(Hintndo riparid). White gives from March 21 to April 12 as the date of its 
arrival. We have never noted it before March 29, and certainly the later date is 
the more usual one. Any one walking by a river or crossing a bridge about that 
time may expect to see two or three Sand Martins blown about overhead in the 
spring breeze, but gallantly holding their own, the first pioneers of the advancing 
multitudes which will course up and down the stream in May. It is the smallest 
of our Swallows, being only five inches long. All its upper plumage and a broad 
bar on its breast is of a rusty mouse colour. Below it is white, and has a short 
forked tail. Water is the delight of this bird, which manifests a grand indifference 
to man. If it can find a crumbling cliff near a river, or even a sandy railway 
cutting or a quarry on occasion far from it, there it congregates in a colony. The 
old holes of past years are occupied, as of right, by the elder birds, while those 
of last year’s broods betake themselves to excavate new burrows for themselves, 
generally at a sufficient height to baffle boys and cats. Their claws are sharp, 
* Boswell’s Johnson, ii., p. 56, ed. 1816. 
t “Birds of India,” Vol. II., Part I., p. 96. 
