MULTIPLYING MIGRANTS.
Among the migrant birds that have been arriving in their tens of thousands, swifts have been very conspicuous. They are among the class of late arrivals, though not so late as fly. catchers and turtle-doves ; but of late years, as it seems to me, they have come rather earlier and certainly in much greater numbers. There were swifts along with the swallows and martins in the first big company of simmier visitors that Saw a fortnight ago and more ; and in several parts of England since then they have been almost the most conspicuous or all birds. It happens curiously that others of the later migrants have multiplied, especially the turtle doves, which were to be found literally in scores last year in favourite haunts. We know sometimes why a species diminishes. We have had, for example, some grim evidence of the destruction of swallows and larks in South Europe ; but it is difficult to trace the cause of such a progressive multiplication as we see in that hawk-like (and not really swallow-like) bird, the swift and in the turtle- dove, both of them possessed of distinctive and peculiar powers of flight. The swift doubtless is a very successful breeder. Its nest is seldom disturbed and the young flourish. The turtle-dove, on the other hand, lays few eggs and builds its nests in obvious and easily approached places.
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