TJicir Eggs and N'esis. 131 



MARTIN — {C/ielido?i urbica ; formerly, Hirundo 

 urhicd). 



Martlet, Martin Swallow, House Martin, Window 

 Martin, Eaves Swallow, Window Swallow. — This fami- 

 liar little bird, whose cheeping note in the nests above 

 our chamber windows is one of the sounds we should 

 sorely miss, frequents the dwellings of men quite as much 

 as, I think more than, the Swallow. Every one knows 

 where to look for the Martin's nest, and many a house 

 can we all call to mind which seems, from some 

 peculiarity in its site or external fashion, to be par- 

 ticularly affected by these birds — and certainly, in 

 most cases, the inmates of the house take much care 

 to save their confiding feathered friends from dis- 

 turbance. In many places, however, the Martin forms 

 large nesting colonies, which take possession of a 

 series of overhanging ledges on some steep rocky face, 

 and there build their nests in great numbers. In 

 Berwickshire, on the banks of the Whiteadder, I knew 

 of such a colony, and others elsewhere : the principal 

 ones, however, being on the rock-bound coast between 

 St. Abb's Head and Burnmouth. Hundreds of these 

 birds nested in several different places upon those 

 lofty precipices.^ No description of the nest itself — 

 beyond what was said in the notice of the Swallow — 

 seems requisite. The number of eggs, which are per- 

 fectly white, seems seldom to exceed six. 



1 Of course Martina and Swallows were in being long before man, 

 and necessarily, therefore, before man's buildings. These birds, 

 then, must have had their building-site when neither chimney, barn, 

 nor eaves were in existence. In the face of this fact "Chimney 

 Swallow," "Eaves Swallow," and the like are, as names, only 

 partially justitlable. 



