Martins Building Nest 



CHAPTER X 



Shakespeare's "guest of summer, the temple- 

 haunting martlet," makes " his pendent bed and 

 procreant cradle," year after year, on the flint walls 

 of my house in Icklingham, thus ofl^ering me every 

 facility for a full observation of its domestic habits. 

 For long I have been intending to make these a 

 study, but the very proximity which seemed to be 

 such an advantage, has proved a hindrance ; for it is 

 one thing to steal silently into a lonely plantation, 

 or lie, at full length, on the wild waste of the 

 warrens, and another to sit in a chair, in one's own 

 garden, or look out of a window in one's own house. 

 So, though the martins were always most interest- 

 ing, I never could keep long near them ; yet some 

 very inadequate notings, forming a scrappy and 

 widely-sundered journal, I have made, and will 



