CAVE DWELLINGS 135 



starling can do such a prodigious amount of excava- 

 tion for himself, why should he be beholden to a 

 sand-martin, or any other bird, for a beginning or 

 any part of it ? That he will, sometimes, commence 

 at a martin's hole, just as he might at any other 

 inequality of the surface — as where a stone has 

 dropped out — and, so, widen a chink into a cavern, 

 a fine, roomy apartment (as Shakespeare ennobled 

 inferior productions, which was not plagiarism), I 

 am not denying, nor that he might enjoy work, all 

 the more, when combined with spoliation. But, 

 with or without this, the starling appears to me to 

 be an architect of considerable eminence, and, as such, 

 not to have received any adequate recognition. 



To return to these wonderful sand-caves — his 

 own work — it seems curious, at first, considering 

 their size, how he can get them so rounded in 

 shape. Here there is no question of turning about, 

 in a heap of things soft and yielding, pressing with 

 the breast, to all sides, moulding, as it were, the 

 materials, like clay upon the potter's wheel — the 

 way in which most nests are made cup-shaped ; but 

 we have a large, airy, beehive-like chamber, some- 

 what resembling the interior of a Kaffir hut, except 

 that the floor is not flat, but more like a reversed 

 and shallower dome. The entrance, too, is small, 

 compared to the size of the interior, in something 

 like the same proportion. Here, on the outside, 

 where the birds have clung, the sand looks scratched, 

 as with their claws, or, sometimes, as though chiselled 

 with their beaks ; but within, the walls and rounded 

 dome have a smooth and swept appearance, almost as 

 if they had been rubbed with sandpaper. Sometimes 



