22G 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



COTILE. (Gr. KwTiAof, twittering.) 



Riparia (Lat. of a bank), the Sand Martin. 



The SAND MARTIN is the smallest of our British Swallows, 

 but makes its appearance before any of its brethren. It 

 principally builds in cliffs of sandstone, boring holes three 

 feat or more in depth, and often winding in their course, 

 most probably to avoid a casual stone or spot too hard for 

 its bill, which, although small and apparently unfitted for the 

 task, makes its way through the sandstone with extraordinary 

 rapidity. Where a convenient sand-clifF exists, hundreds of 

 these pretty little birds may be seen working away at their 

 habitations, or dashing about in the air looking at a distance 

 like white butterflies, occasionally returning to the rock, often 

 completely honeycombed by their labours. Near Ashbourn 

 in Derbyshire there are plenty of these rocks, where the Sand 

 Martins build in myriads, tolerably safe except from the 

 school-boy, who will clamber up and down the crumbling 

 surface, and thrust his arm into the holes, perfectly regard- 

 less of the danger, and content with grasping a tuft of grass 

 or a root of blackberry as an anchorage. I have seen the 

 Sand Martins there engaged in mobbing a sparrow-hawk, who, 

 after being buffeted about for some time, retaliated by seizing 

 a too daring Martin and carrying it off, when the whole scene 

 was changed the triumphant jeerings turned into cries of 



