434 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Martin is far more a bird of the village or town than the Swallow 

 and is wont to concentrate in colonies in restricted areas rather than 

 breed in isolated pairs in many separate buildings, though isolated 

 pairs often occur. Thus in an area of 8,000 acres in Lancashire 19 

 pairs were concentrated in two groups; an area of about 4,000 acres 

 in Norfolk contained 158 pairs of which 110 were in one small vil- 

 lage." This does not mean that the martin never nests elsewhere, for 

 it is often found in rural districts and builds its nest on farm 

 buildings. Yarrell (1876-1882) says that "the Martin yet retains 

 in this country some of its original seats, for it still chooses its 

 breeding-place in cliffs, generally on the coast, but sometimes inland, 

 and quite apart from any human habitation." 



Nesting. — The best account of the nesting habits of the martin 

 seems to have been given by Macgillivray (1840) and his contributors, 

 from which I shall quote freely. He writes : 



Most commonly tlie nest of this swallow is placed in the upper corner of a 

 window, often also under the eaves of out-houses, and in similar situations, 

 where it is sheltered from ahove, sometimes on the face of a rock, whether 

 on the sea-shore or inland. * * * When in the corner of a window, it is 

 of rounded form externally, flat on the adhering sides, rectangular above, and 

 has a roundish or transversely oblong aperture at the top, almost always on 

 the sheltered side, or that next the middle of the window. I have seen several 

 instances in which the aperture was at the outer edge of the window, and 

 sometimes it has a kind of neck, or the mouth projects an inch or more. The 

 nest is usually large, having an external diameter of from six to eight inches. 

 The outer part of one examined by me * * * consisted of pellets of friable 

 sandy mud, not in the least glutinous, intermixed with small, generally angular 

 pebbles or gravel. Into this outer crust were thrust numerous straws or frag- 

 ments of stems of grasses, which became free internally, and were circularly 

 disposed. Within was a layer of wool, partly interwoven with the straw, and 

 lastly a thick bed of large feathers of the domestic fowl. Another nest from 

 a village near Edinburgh, is six inches in diameter externally. The outer shell 

 is a solid mass of fine loam, which has been built of pellets in the form of soft 

 mud, so that the outer surface presents horizontally compressed mammillae. 

 The average thickness of this crust is seven-twelfths of an inch. It is quite 

 friable, and if any glutinous matter has ever been intermixed with the mud, 

 it has entirely disappeared, but it is in some measure held together by a con- 

 siderable intermixture of short straws. The next layer is of straws of various 

 kinds, mostly decayed. This is followed by a thick layer of wool, which is 

 succeeded by a great quantity of hogs' bristles, cows' hair, human hair, a piece 

 of linen, a bit of tape, and a number of feathers, chiefly of the domestic fowl. 



As for the method of gathering material for the nest, he says that 

 "they alight by the edge of a pool, or brook, often on the street or 

 road after rain, select a portion, seize it with their bill, fly off to 

 their nest, and apply it in its wet state to the edge of the unfinished 

 crust, which they thus gradually build from the bottom upwards, 

 until it is completed. * * * Straws and feathers they pick up in 



