Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 51 



in many respects peculiarly suited to them. Although they had 

 not taken up their abode there, yet in the high and time-worn pre- 

 cipices which rise above the ocean at only a short distance to the 

 eastward of the village, martins were always to be seen, seeming 

 especially graceful as they glided to and from their nests, beneath 

 the summit of the stupendous basaltic arch that rises at the base of 

 the isolated rock on which the ruin of a castle is situated — a locality 

 which I understood they had always frequented. 



This Hirundo is so partial to the noble basaltic precipices which 

 form the leading features of the north-east coast of Ireland, as in the 

 more genial seasons of the year to be ever seen about them. Through- 

 out their entire range, and against their gloomy cliffs, " its pendent 

 bed" is erected*. About the sea-girt rocks of the peninsula of the 

 Horn in Donegal, those near to Ardmore in the county of Waterford, 

 and other similar localities, I have remarked its presence f. Martins 

 occasionally build against the arch of the bridge. Toome bridge 

 (over the Bann) contained a great many of their nests in 1 834, and 

 for a long period is said to have been a favourite haunt : the most 

 lofty edifices are also selected for this purpose. 



I* It has been observed (says White, in the sixteenth letter of his 

 * Natural History of Selborne') that martins usually build to a north- 

 east or north-west aspect, that the heat of the sun may not crack and 

 destroy their nests ; but instances are also remembered where they 

 bred for many years in vast abundance in a hot, stifled inn-yard, 

 against a wall facing to the south." On this subject the following 

 note was made on the loth July, 1832 : — I this day observed twelve 

 or thirteen nests of the Hirundo urbica built against a two-story 

 house at Wolfhill. These were all on the north-west side or front, 

 excepting one, which was at the north-east corner. The other two 

 sides of this house have in part a southerly exposure (S.W. and 

 S.E.), and being fenced in are consequently more private (a road 

 passing those preferred by the martin) — on every side the facilities 

 for its building operations are the same. In front of a thatched 



* Dr. J. D. Marshall, in his memoir ' On the Statistics and Natural History 

 of the Island of Rathlin,' remarks, that the house martin " is the most nume- 

 rous of the genus in Rathlin, where it is found in all parts of the island, as 

 well inland as along the cliffs which overhang the sea." Those preferred 

 for nestling are said to be " the range of white [limestone] cliffs running 

 along the north-western side of Church Bay." In rocks of a similar kind, 

 but in a very different scene, I myself observed a great number of the nests 

 of the martin in June 1835. This was in the chalk-cliffs which rise above 

 the river Derwent, near the village of Cromford in Derbyshire. The nests 

 were built in as far as possible beneath the hanging rocks, in the same man- 

 ner that they are under a projecting roof. 



Dr. Marshall, in the same memoir, mentions that one of these birds which 

 he shot " had its mouth completely filled with insects, among which were a 

 large dragon-fly and one of the Tipula [T 7 . oleraced]." White of Selborne 

 states that swifts and sand martins feed on Libellulce. 



f " They breed in the Pyrenees in the rocks in vast numbers, as in the 

 Alps, often far from the habitation of man." — Cook's Sketches in Spain, 

 vol. ii. p. 275. 



E 2 



