SWALLOW TRIBE. 99 



fortuitous circumstance, I now began to suspect, 

 might be occasioned by a voluntary act of de- 

 sertion. 



In order to clear up this doubtful point, an 

 examination of a considerable number of swal- 

 lows' and martins* nests was immediately re- 

 solved upon; but, as the breeding season had 

 then commenced^ it was deemed advisable, on 

 more mature deliberation, to defer the undertak- 

 ing until its termination : accordingly, the search 

 was postponed to the 27th of October, when, on 

 being carried into effect, several nests, of both 

 kinds, were found to contain dead young ones. 

 Satisfied that a fact of such frequent occurrence, 

 could not, with any degree of probability, be 

 ascribed to accident and convinced, that the 

 intentional desertion of their progeny by the 

 parent birds, afforded the only adequate expla- 

 nation of it which was admissible, no further 

 inquiry into the matter took place till November, 

 1825. On the 19th of that month, an intelligent 

 person, to whom I am indebted for numerous 

 interesting communications, relative to the natural 

 productions of the neighbourhood in which he 

 resides, assured me, the suspicion I had formerly 

 intimated to him, that martins frequently leave 

 their last hatched broods to die of hunger in the 

 nest, was perfectly well founded. Having nar- 



