592 HIRLNDO UllBICA. 



informed me that they were eye-witnesses of the. fact, and that 

 they had the bird in their hands after it had been taken out. 

 The same disaster happened to another sparrow in a nest, 

 which was built in the window of the house of Mr Henry 

 Reid, grazier in Bathgate. 



" These birds produce two broods in the season ; the young 

 of the first brood do not desert their parents Mdien they have 

 a second family, but as many of them as can be rightly accom- 

 modated roost with them during the night. One evening in 

 August last I caught in a nest the male and female with four 

 of their second brood and two of the first. 



" It is a remarkable fact that they annually return to their old 

 residences. In the town of Bathgate I know two nests which 

 for the last three years have remained entire, and have been 

 regularly tenanted each season, but whether by the same in- 

 mates or not I cannot affirm ; Captain King has however been 

 able to prove that the same pair of Martins do sometimes re- 

 occupy their fomer nest. In his narrative of a journey to the 

 shores of the Arctic Regions in 18S3, 1834, and 1835, in Vol. I. 

 p. 97, he makes the following statement with respect to these 

 birds : — ' That the House Martin not only visits the same place, 

 but the same nest year after year, is a fact which I ascertained 

 by experiment. While residing in Kent, about ten years ago, 

 having selected a detached nest, I fastened a small piece of 

 silk round one of the legs of its inmate, then sitting upon eggs. 

 The following season the bird returned, and with the garter 

 still affixed, was secured in the same nest, — a convincing proof 

 of the instinctive knowledge attributed to it.' In further con- 

 firmation of the above statement I may mention that at 

 the windows of my house, during the month of September 

 1838, I caught several pairs of Martins, and fixed small silver 

 rings round their legs. In my immediate neighbourhood about 

 the middle of May last, one of them was shot. 



" The regularity of the arrival of these ' joyous prophets 

 of the year," at their breeding places, is truly astonishing. 

 David Falconar, Esq., told me that for the very long period 

 of forty successive years, a pair of them had come to Carlow- 

 rie, either upon the 22d or 23d of April. On the forenoon of 



