ART. IV. On the Arrival and Retreat of the British Hirundines, with a Table of Arrivals and Departures, from 1800 to 1828. By the Rev. W. T. BREE, M.A.

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It has long been a question among naturalists, and one that has not yet been so fully and satisfactorily answered as could be wished, what becomes of the swallows during the winter, after they have disappeared from our view in the autumn. The opinion adopted by Linnæus, and other northern naturalists, that they retire under water for the winter, if it ever prevailed to any extent among the more intelligent in this country, has, I believe, been long since exploded. Little doubt, I think, need be entertained, that the greater part of them migrate to warmer climates: but do not a few individuals of at least some of the species secrete themselves in this country, and lie in a torpid state during the winter months? No naturalist, perhaps, ever paid more minute attention to this subject than the celebrated Gilbert White; and though his diligent and repeated efforts to discover any of these birds in their brumal retirement invariably proved unsuccessful, still the result of his various observations amounts, I believe, to what has just been stated, that while the great body of swallows migrate, some few lie dormant, and remain in this country. There are several circumstances connected both with their first appearance and their departure which tend to confirm the above opinion. It almost invariably happens that a few individuals of the swallow tribe are to be seen in the early spring (by the beginning of April, or even in March), long before the general flight arrives; hence the common saying, that " one swallow does not make summer." And, again, a few linger on with us long after the general flight has disappeared in the autumn. These stragglers, too, both in spring and autumn, frequently withdraw for some days, or even weeks, and then reappear after a considerable interval. circumstance, this," as White observes, "much more in favour of hiding than migration; since it is much more probable that a bird should retire to its hybernaculum just at hand, than return for a week or two only to warmer latitudes.” The autumnal stragglers, it is supposed, are weakly birds that have been hatched late in the season; and they are frequently to be observed flying feebly and heavily about, not with their accustomed alacrity. To all appearance, therefore, they seem to be ill calculated to undertake a long journey over the seas, and to encounter the tempestuous weather likely to occur at that late season of the year. Of all our British species the

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See Hist. of Selborne, Letter xxi. to Thomas Pennant, Esq., and Letter xviii. to the Hon. D. Barrington.

sand marten is the one which we should naturally expect to be the most likely to hide during the winter in the deep recesses of banks, in which it makes its nest.* And, accordingly, this is, occasionally at least, the earliest which makes its appearance in the spring. White, indeed, says that the house swallow comes first; but the earliest appearance I find recorded in his calendar is of the sand marten on the 21st of March. In two several seasons I have observed the sand marten on the 31st of that month; once in Cornwall, and once in this neighbourhood, as appears by the following table, under the years 1818 and 1822. I have been informed by an intelligent friend, accustomed to pay attention to these birds, that a house swallow once took up its residence, late in the autumn, within St. Mary's Church, at Warwick, and was regularly observed there by the congregation until Christmas eve, after which it disappeared, and was seen no more. And, a few years since, I heard of one making its appearance, in the middle of winter, about the old mansion at Wroxall, in this county, but to which species this bird belonged I was unable to ascertain. The above facts, however far they may fall short of positive proof, undoubtedly afford much probability to White's opinion, that the Hirúndines do not all leave this island in the winter. At the same time, if this be the case (a case, too, which, if it occur at all, occurs, we may suppose, every year), it certainly is extraordinary that these birds should never, either by accident or design, have been discovered, while dormant in their winter quarters. And of such discovery I am not aware that any instance has been adduced sufficiently well authenticated to be relied on.

The swift (Hirúndo Apus), I am inclined to think, does not hide with us, but is altogether migratory. Its appearance in the spring is more simultaneous than that of the other Hirúndines, few of this species being to be seen much before the general flight makes its appearance. It retires, for the most part, by the middle of August or earlier, and does not visit us again till towards the end of April or the beginning of May. Now it seems hardly probable that a bird of such matchless powers of wing, whose entire occupation, save only when engaged in rest and incubation, is carried on in the air, should be doomed to spend more than two thirds of the year in a state of inactivity. Nor, again, is it likely that this species would retire so early in the season as it does, if it were for the pur

White, however, observes that "these birds do not make use of their caverns by way of hybernacula." (Letter xx. to the Hon. D. Barrington.) Possibly they may occasionally do so, nevertheless, though he failed to discover them in those situations.

VOL. II. - No. 6.

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pose of passing into a dormant state; especially as we know that it can, and occasionally does, subsist with us for a considerable time after the usual period of its disappearance. The following Table shows that the swift is sometimes seen in September, once so late as the 15th of that month; and the same friend who related to me the circumstance of the house swallow taking up its abode in St. Mary's Church, informed me, likewise, that he once recollected an instance of a swift, at Warwick, remaining till about the time the swallows in general took their departure. The bird was observed by many persons, and attracted attention the more, from the circumstance of its flying about along with the swallows, with a piece of string or rag, or something of the sort, adhering to it. Most probably it had been caught by some unlucky boy, who turned it off again in sport, after having affixed to it this cumbrous appendage, which, no doubt, proved the cause of deterring the bird from migrating along with its associates at the usual season.

The calendar from which the following Table has been constructed, was kept for the most part in the midland counties, and chiefly in Warwickshire. In some few instances, however, the observations were made in distant counties; and such are, accordingly, distinguished by a note at the bottom of the Table. I have to regret that the notices relating to the house marten and sand marten are so scanty. The fact is, though the sand marten is less than the house marten, and of a different colour, the two species are not always readily to be distinguished from each other, unless a tolerably near view of them can be obtained; when at a distance, or high in the air, the one may be easily mistaken for the other. And I have made it an invariable rule never to enter in the calendar any occurrence of which I was not perfectly certain; accuracy of observation being the chief, if not the only, merit such a journal can well possess. The sand marten, too, is but partially distributed through the country, and is the least domestic of the genus, mostly frequenting wild commons, cliffs, sand-pits, &c., and but seldom approaching the haunts of men. times it happens that the summer may have far advanced before one of this species has presented itself to my view. And to record its appearance at such a season as its first arrival would tend rather to mislead than inform the naturalist. The frequent omission in the Table of these two species is, however, the less to be regretted, as their periods both of arrival and departure for the most part coincide pretty nearly with those of the house swallows. If the exact order in which our British species arrive be required to be stated, I should arrange it thus, sand marten, house swallow, house marten, swift.

Some

TABLE showing the earliest and latest Appearances of the British Hirundines from the Year 1800 to the present Time.

a. In the Isle of Wight.

b. This was a single bird seen at Birmingham. I observed others in Northamptonshire on the 21st of August, and one at Coventry on the 24th. The last seen at Allesley were on the 5th of August.

c. At Worksop, in Yorkshire; a single bird.

d. At Lancaster; many birds flying in packs, and squealing about the town. I had observed none elsewhere since the 7th of August.

e. Near Penzance. I was informed by an observant friend 'that one swallow appeared at Allesley on the 10th of November, and martens at Ŏxford on the 14th; and at the latter place one marten or swallow on the 20th.

f. Two or three swifts sporting about with the large assemblies of swallows and martens by the seaside, near Penzance, to the eastward. These birds, there can be little doubt, were on their passage from this country to a more southern climate. I had seen none for a month previously; the last I observed were on the 1st of August, near Bristol. In Warwickshire swifts were seen this year on the 27th of August. Near Penzance.

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Upwards of a score sand martens seen in the evening, sporting over the marshes between Gulval and Marizion, near Penzance. The wind at that time was N.W., and the thermometer stood on that day at 50 in the shade at noon.

i. A single bird seen in this parish; one, and most probably the same, individual had been observed by another person at the same place, on the 6th of April.

k. A single bird seen in Northamptonshire. In Warwickshire they were mostly gone by the 15th of August; one seen on the 20th.

2. A single bird seen at Birmingham. I had observed none since the 20th of October.

m. At Eastbourne, Sussex.

n. Two or three birds seen near London. Last seen in Warwickshire on the 15th of October. Mostly gone by the 6th.

o. Two birds so high in the air that I could not be quite certain whether they were sand martens or house martens, but believe them to have been the former.

p. I am informed that a swallow was seen at Maxstoke Castle in this county on Nov. 11th,

Let it be remembered, that it is the earliest and the latest appearance of the several species of Hirundo that are recorded in the Table above, not that of the main body of them. Of the first three species, viz. swallow, marten, and sand marten, the general flight does not usually appear till about the end of April or beginning of May, and retires about the beginning of October. Of the swifts the general flight may be stated as arriving about the middle of May, and departing early in August. Yours, &c.

Allesley Rectory, Aug. 6.

W. T. BREE.

ART. V. An Outline and Description of Centròtus Bennètii and By the Rev. WILLIAM KIRBY, M. A. F. R. S.

Hardwickii.

L. S. &c.

Sir,

THERE are no tribes of animals, with the exception, perhaps, of fishes, in which so much singularity and eccentricity of form are observable, as in that of insects; of this, examples may be produced from almost every order, but in none is this sportiveness more conspicuous than in the homopterous section of the Hemiptera, especially in Fabricius's genus Centròtus. Having received two insects that remarkably verify this observation, from two very distant quarters of the globe, one from General Hardwicke, well known for the spirit and talent with which he has collected and illustrated zoological subjects in the East, and the other from Edward Bennet, Esq., of Rougham Hall, in Suffolk, who collected insects with singular assiduity in the West, at Choco, in Colombia, I thought an outline and description of such strange forms might amuse and interest some of your readers. I have added to them four other figures of insects of the same genus, copied from Stoll's Cigales, a work in few hands, which are all calculated to excite astonishment in the mind of the beholder, who, at first, would be disposed to doubt the existence of creatures armed in so extraordinary and grotesque a manner. The only conjecture one can form, with regard to the use of the apparatus that distinguishes them, is that it is designed to deceive their enemies, the birds, who may thus often be led to mistake them for part of the spray of the tree or shrub on which they feed.

Centrotus Bennètii. (fig. 5. a) Body not four lines long, of a lurid colour, obscure; rather hairy, hairs erect; thorax thickly punctate, with a compressed reflexed horn