SWALLOWS 375 



ceptible piece of mud, pressing and rolling it until 

 more adheres, and the ball becomes as large as a 

 fairly large pea. This they carry to the site and 

 afifix to the bare wall some six or seven inches below 

 the eave. Great judgment of distance is required 

 here, for the finished nest must come right up to 

 the eave which forms the top. After a vast number 

 of journeys a rim appears on the stone; day by 

 day this increases, swelling outwards, until at 

 length the quarter hemisphere of rustic mud-work 

 is completed. This is if all goes well, for the 

 builders have many difficulties, foreseen and un- 

 foreseen, to face. Heavy rains may come and beat 

 upon their house, and in the morning the toilfully 

 raised wall may be stricken down. Or they may 

 build too quickly and the structure, imperfectly set, 

 may fall by reason of its ow^n weight. Then, when 

 all is finished, a Sparrow, too idle to rake together 

 straws enough to make the shapeless litter in the 

 ivy which he calls a nest, coolly takes possession, 

 and repels the owners on their own threshold. 

 There are legends of Martins blocking up the door- 

 way and leaving the Sparrow hermetically sealed 

 in his ill-gotten abode. But it is to be feared that 

 these belong to the domain of poetic justice rather 

 than of natural history. 



Save for the Sparrows the Martins have few- 

 enemies. The farmers usually have an almost 

 superstitious respect for the "Swallows," and 

 never willingly allow them to be molested. The 

 farmstead of which I have spoken, had been in 

 one family for many generations, and as far back 

 as the oldest tradition went, there had been 



