536 



MA RA BO U-STORK— MARTIN 



f^yl^'' 



movements, evincing more curiosity than timidity on being ap- 

 proached. As with members of the Paradiseiclx generally, the 

 nidification of the Manucodes had been shrouded in mystery, until, 

 as recorded by Mr. North {Rec. Austral. Mus. ii. p. 32, pi. vii.), the 

 nest and eggs of M. comrii were found, in July 1891, by Mr. 

 Eickard on Fergusson Island, one of the D'Entrecasteaux group, 

 off the south-eastern coast of New Guinea. 



MARABOU-STOKK, Le-ptoptilus crumenifer, see Adjutant. 



MARLIN, apparently a corrupt spelling of Merlin, of which 

 , • / it is an ancient form, but applied in the east coast of North America 

 ^ Avith qualification to any species of Curlew or Godwit. 



MARROCK or MARROT, one of the many local names of the 

 Guillemot and Razor-bill, perhaps also of the Puffin. 



MARSH-HEN, used in North America for various species of 

 Rail; but especially, it would seem, for Rallus degans and U. 

 crepitans (Turnbull, Names & Portr. B. pp. 125, 127). 



MARTIN formerly MARTLET i (French, Martinet and Mar- 

 telet), the Hirundo urbica of Linnaeus and Chelidon urhica of most 

 modern ornithologists,^ a bird very well known throughout Europe, 

 including even Lapland, where it is abundant, retiring in winter to 

 the south of Africa.^ It also inhabits the western part of Asia, 

 and appears from time to time in large flocks in India ; but the 

 boundaries of its range and those of some of its Eastern congeners 

 cannot as yet be laid down. The Martin (or House-Martin, as it 

 is often called, to distinguish it from the Sand-Martin presently to 

 be mentioned) commonly reaches its summer-quarters a few days 

 later than the Swallow, whose habits its own so much resemble 

 that heedless persons often disregard the very perceptible differences 



^ Thus Shakespear — 



• ' ' Like tlie martlet, 



Builds in the weather on the outward wall." 



Merchant of Venice, Act ii. sc. 9. 



But the older English form is, except in heralds' language, almost obsolete, and 



when used is now applied in some places to the Savift. The forms jMartyn, 



Mertyn, and Morton are found printed in some Scottish Acts of Parliament, 



and from the context may be inferred to mean a Bird, but of what kind it is hard 



to guess. 



^ Of late North- American \vriters have taken the words Clulidon and Hirundo 

 in the opposite sense, which is puzzling to readers in the rest of the world. 



2 After the publication of the account of this species in Yarrell's British Birds 

 (ed. 4, ii. p. 354), the late Mr. Gurney informed me of a specimen obtained out 

 of a migratory flock flying very high on the Qua'qua' river, lat. 19° 10' S., by 

 the expedition of Messrs. Jameson and Ay res, 23rd October 1880, and the fact 

 has since been recorded by Capt. Shelley {Ihis, 1882, p. 259). Mr. Fairbridge 

 believes that he has lately found the species breeding in Cape Town. 



