Note 8 — EAST COAST OF SCOTLAND.

"About four o'clock in the afternoon of the 13th and 14th March the light-keeper on duty at the Bell Rock Lighthouse observed a swallow fluttering in front of the kitchen window. After watching it for some little time he opened the window and stood aside to see if the bird would come in. This in a minute or two it did, and alighted on the inside of the windowsill. So exhausted did the little wanderer appear from its long flight and the buffetting of the weather that it allowed itself to be lifted up and put into a cage. It immediately lay down on the bottom of the cage and instantly fell fast asleep, remaining in this state till next morning about eight o'clock (sixteen hours). So sound were its slumbers that the keepers watching it as it lay could scarcely detect any signs of life in it, and at times they were almost certain that it had died. On awakening at the hour mentioned the swallow was taken out by one of the keepers and given a drink of water. It was put back into the cage again, where it lay in an apparently dormant condition till 10 A.M., when it was supplied with more water, under the influence of which and the rays of the sun it became quite lively and strong. The kitchen window was now lifted up and the bird taken out and laid on the open hand of Mr. Jack, principal light-keeper. Resting there for a moment, it gave one cheery twitter, and, springing upwards from the outstretched palm, it winged its way in the direction of the land and was lost sight of in the space of a minute or two. The appearance of the bird so far north at such an early season is remarkable. The swallow migrates to Africa at the end of October, and it is not till the middle of April that the flight northward begins, so that the one which surprised the light-keepers before March was half run was several weeks earlier than the usual time for their appearance here. It may be added that, the Swallow being an insectivorous bird, the lighthouse keepers were unable to supply it with its ordinary food, and abstained from giving it any other for fear of injuring it."