Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/424

402 SAND-MARTINS. March 23rd, 1788. A gentleman, who was this week on a visit at Waverley, took the opportunity of examining some of the holes in the sand-banks with which that district abounds. As these are undoubtedly bored by bank martins, and are the places where they avowedly breed, he was in hopes they might have slept there also, and that he might have surprised them just as they were awaking from their winter slumbers. When he had dug for some time, he found the holes were horizontal and serpentine, as I had observed before; and that the nests were deposited at the inner end, and had been occupied by broods in former summers, but no torpid birds were to be found. He opened and examined about a dozen holes. Another gentleman made the same search many years ago, with as little success.

These holes were in depth about two feet.

March 21st, 1790. A single bank or sand-martin was seen hovering and playing round the sand-pit at Short Heath, where in the summer they abound.

April 9th, 1793. A sober hind assures us, that this day, on Wishhanger common between Hedleigh and Frinsham, he saw several bank martins playing in and out, and hanging before some nest-holes in a sand-hill, where these birds usually nestle.

The incident confirms my suspicions, that this species of hirundo is to be seen first of any; and gives great reason to suppose that they do not leave their wild haunts at all, but are secreted amidst the clefts and caverns of those abrupt cliffs, where they usually spend their summers.

The late severe weather considered, it is not very probable that these birds should have migrated so early from a tropical region, through all these cutting winds and pinching frosts; but it is easy to suppose that they may, like bats and flies, have been awakened by the influence of the sun, amidst their secret latebræ, where they have spent the uncomfortable foodless months in a torpid state, and the profoundest of slumbers.

There is a large pond at Wish-hanger, which induces these