On the Senegal River and at Sierra Leone it may be seen all the year round, but is less numerous there from June to September.[67] On the West Coast of Africa the Swallow appears to travel as far south as the island of St. Thomas on the equator, where Mr. Yarrell states it has been met with in January and February.
In Tangier and Eastern Morocco Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake says the Swallow is found throughout the year, but the Martin and Sand Martin, he believes, do not winter there. (“Ibis,” 1862, p. 425.)
The Swallow has been noticed as plentiful at Tripoli in the middle of March (Chambers, “Ibis,” 1867, p. 99), and Mr. Osbert Salvin observed it in Algeria, between Constantine and Batna, where he found several nests among the rafters of an open shed. According to the Rev. Canon Tristram—than whom there is no better authority on the subject of North African and Palestine birds—a few pairs of Swallows remain all the winter in each oasis in North Africa, wherever there is water or marsh; but none of those which he observed were in mature plumage, and it is therefore presumed that only the younger and weaker birds stay behind. The Arabs informed him that for one Swallow they have in winter they have twenty in summer, and that they usually retire about the end of November, returning in February. In November, also, they have been observed to be common at Alexandria and Cairo (E. C. Taylor, “Ibis,” 1859, p. 47); and on the 5th of November, when leaving Aden, Mr. Swinhoe remarked that a few Swallows followed the ship, apparently bound for the Indian coast. According to the observations of Mr. E. C. Taylor (“Ibis,” 1867, p. 57), this species reappears in Egypt about March 25, and is common at Cairo and Damietta in April. Rüppell, in his “Systematische Uebersicht der Vögel Nordost-Afrika’s,” includes the Swallow (p. 22) as being found in Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia; and as regards the last-named country, Mr. Blanford has remarked[68] that it is common everywhere, and that he found it especially abundant on the shores of Annesley Bay in June.
Continuing a search for this species southward along the East Coast of Africa, it will be found that, according to the observations of Mr. Ayres in Natal, the Swallow arrives in that colony in great numbers in November, congregating and leaving again in March and April. Mr. Layard found it to be an annual winter visitant to the Cape Colony, and on one occasion when sailing from New Zealand to the Cape of Good Hope, on the 28th of November, he saw a Swallow and a Sand Martin fly about the ship for some time. He was then in lat. 33° 20′, long. 31° 50′, and about 290 miles from the Cape. Several insects (_Libellula_, _Agrostis_, and _Geometra_) were caught on deck, and we may presume, therefore, that the birds found sufficient food to support them at that distance from land.