Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 53 



disturb the summer wanderer, have, for the sake of uniformity, had 

 its domicile whitewashed at the same time with their own. I first 

 noticed this in the town of Antrim, where on two houses several 

 nests thus appeared, and was pleased to see their architects flying in 

 and out, thus evincing their contentment with the change. In 

 Hillsborough I afterwards remarked that the same practice had been 

 adopted. 



The statement of several continental authors, that house martins, 

 on finding sparrows in possession of their nests, had been known to 

 rise en masse, and fill up the entrance when the intruders were within, 

 would seem from the silence of some of the latest British writers of 

 authority on the subject, not to be credited by them. The compiler 

 of the ' Architecture of Birds' sets it down as a " fanciful legend ;" 

 but I have unquestionable testimony that a case precisely similar to 

 those related by the authors alluded to, occurred in the next farm to 

 our own, near Belfast, in 1832. 



When the house martin returned in that year to a long thatched 

 cottage (belonging to Mr. John Clements) where they had built for 

 many years (and which in that year displayed fourteen of their nests), 

 a pair found that sparrows had taken possession of their domicile. 

 On perceiving this, they kept up such " a chattering about the nest" 

 as to attract the attention of the owner of the house. After its con- 

 tinuance for some time, apparently until they were convinced that 

 the sparrow was determined to retain possession, they flew away, 

 and did not return for a considerable time, when they re-appeared 

 with about twenty of their kindred. With their assistance they 

 immediately commenced " claying up the entrance to the nest." This 

 was done in the course of the day, and next morning the pair of 

 martins commenced the construction of a new nest against the side 

 of their old one, and in it, undisturbed, reared their brood. After 

 some time, the proprietor of the cottage, who had never heard of any 

 similar case, had the curiosity to pull down both nests, and in that 

 occupied by the sparrow found its " rotten corpse," together with 

 several eggs. A particular note of the entire proceeding, as related 

 by Mr. Clements, was made by my brother soon after the occurrence ; 

 but to make " assurance doubly sure" before publishing the account, 

 I inquired today (November 2, 1841) of the same person whether 

 he remembered such a circumstance, when he repeated it just as 

 narrated nine years before. Some other persons too of our mutual 

 acquaintance were witness to the chief parts of the proceeding, and 

 saw the sparrow and its eggs in the sealed- up nest*. 



What appears to me the most singular feature in this case is, that 

 the sparrow would remain in the nest, and allow itself to be en- 

 tombed alive ; but this bird was sitting on the full complement of 

 eggs, and which were probably in the last stage of incubation, when 

 we know that some birds leave the nest only to procure such a scanty 



* Three recent occurrences of a similar nature are recorded by Mr. Weir 

 (Macgillivray, British Birds, vol. iii. p. 591), and two others are alluded to 

 under the head of " Swallow" by the Bishop of Norwich, in his • Familiar 

 History of Birds,' vol. ii. p. 55, 3rd edition. 



