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
It is a summer migrant in Palestine, where Canon Tristram observed it
nesting near Mar Saba, and in the tremendous ravine above the site of
Jericho. It arrives at Constantinople from its winter quarters towards
the end of April, and is common in Corfu from May to September, nesting
annually in the Citadel Rock (Lord Lilford, “Ibis,” 1860, p. 234). It
breeds in great numbers along the Etruscan coast, and is occasionally
seen at Pisa (Dr. Giglioli, “Ibis,” 1865, pp. 51-52). It has been
observed on passage in Tangier and Eastern Morocco, and Mr. O. Salvin
remarked that it was common about the plains of the Salt Lake district,
Eastern Atlas, and breeding in most of the rocks of that country
(“Ibis,” 1859, p. 302). Mr. Howard Saunders saw hundreds at Gibraltar
towards the end of March, and in June it was observed by Lord Lilford
amongst the peaks of the Sierra near San Ildefonso. To England, as we
have said, it rarely strays. In habits it is described, by those who
have had opportunities for observing it, as resembling very much the
Common Swift. Like this species, it nests in holes and crevices, and
lays two white eggs of a similar shape to those of its congener, but
much larger. Its cry is said to be very different. Its vastly superior
size and white belly serve at all times to distinguish it from the
smaller and more sable bird with which we are so familiar.
The Spine-tailed Swift (_Acanthylis caudacutus_), a bird which is found
in Siberia, Persia, India, China, and Australia, has in one single
instance been met with in the British Islands. A specimen was killed at
Great Horkesley, near Colchester, on July 8, 1846, as recorded in the
“Zoologist” for that year (p. 1492), and was fortunately examined in the
flesh by Messrs. Yarrell, Fisher, Hall, Doubleday, and Newman.
[Illustration: NIGHTJAR]
THE NIGHTJAR.
(_Caprimulgus europæus._)
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