292 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



I kept an eye on the martins, visiting them very early 

 every morning and two or three times later during each 

 day. The young, it could be seen w^hen they thrust 

 their heads and almost half their bodies out to receive 

 the food their parents brought, were fully grown and 

 very clamorous. 



"They will be out in a day or two," I said con- 

 fidently. The people of the house informed me that 

 this same nest had been occupied, off and on, through- 

 out the summer; and if we take it that eggs were laid 

 at the beginning of May, it must be assumed that this 

 pair of martins had been occupied almost continuously 

 wiA the breeding business for six months, and were 

 now rearing their third, or possibly their fourth brood. 

 A long period when we consider that they could not 

 have had a worse season: bad everywhere in England, 

 it was exceptionally so on the Norfolk coast, where the 

 winds and cold were most felt and the flooding rains 

 in August were greatest. 



As the young birds did not come out during the two 

 following days, I began to look for their abandonment, 

 whereupon the women of the house compassionately 

 offered to take them in and feed them, in the hope of 

 keeping them alive until the return of warm weather, 

 when they would be liberated. From that time on- 

 wards they and others in the town who had begun to 

 take an interest in the birds helped me to keep a watch 

 on the nest. Assuredly the young would be abandoned 

 and that very shortly; the weather was rough and cold, 

 food becoming scarcer each day; and for a month or 



