Our Summer Migrants: An Account of the Migratory Birds Which Pass the Summer in the British Islands.Harting, James Edmund
Science
Our Summer Migrants: An Account of the Migratory Birds Which Pass the Summer in the British Islands.
Harting, James Edmund
Birds -- Great Britain
course by adverse winds, it may be remarked that Prince Charles
Bonaparte saw Swallows and Martins at sea 500 miles from Portugal and
400 miles off the coast of Africa. Sir William Jardine has recorded the
presence of the Swallow at Madeira, and Mr. Osbert Salvin, writing on
May 28 (“Ibis,” 1859, p. 334), says: “Some Swallows came on board when
we were 180 miles north-west of the Azores, so that it is probable that
the bird is found in these islands.”
On the Senegal River and at Sierra Leone it may be seen all the year
round, but is less numerous there from June to September.[67] On the
West Coast of Africa the Swallow appears to travel as far south as the
island of St. Thomas on the equator, where Mr. Yarrell states it has
been met with in January and February.
In Tangier and Eastern Morocco Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake says the Swallow is
found throughout the year, but the Martin and Sand Martin, he believes,
do not winter there. (“Ibis,” 1862, p. 425.)
The Swallow has been noticed as plentiful at Tripoli in the middle of
March (Chambers, “Ibis,” 1867, p. 99), and Mr. Osbert Salvin observed it
in Algeria, between Constantine and Batna, where he found several nests
among the rafters of an open shed. According to the Rev. Canon
Tristram—than whom there is no better authority on the subject of North
African and Palestine birds—a few pairs of Swallows remain all the
winter in each oasis in North Africa, wherever there is water or marsh;
but none of those which he observed were in mature plumage, and it is
therefore presumed that only the younger and weaker birds stay behind.
The Arabs informed him that for one Swallow they have in winter they
have twenty in summer, and that they usually retire about the end of
November, returning in February. In November, also, they have been
observed to be common at Alexandria and Cairo (E. C. Taylor, “Ibis,”
1859, p. 47); and on the 5th of November, when leaving Aden, Mr. Swinhoe
remarked that a few Swallows followed the ship, apparently bound for the
Indian coast. According to the observations of Mr. E. C. Taylor (“Ibis,”
1867, p. 57), this species reappears in Egypt about March 25, and is
common at Cairo and Damietta in April. Rüppell, in his “Systematische
Uebersicht der Vögel Nordost-Afrika’s,” includes the Swallow (p. 22) as
being found in Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia; and as regards the
last-named country, Mr. Blanford has remarked[68] that it is common
everywhere, and that he found it especially abundant on the shores of
Annesley Bay in June.
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