248 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



they were — not house-, but foundation-hunting. I 

 notice that these birds, when they fly from the pro- 

 posed or contemplated site, will often, after making 

 a circle round, wheel in to the nest nearest to it, and, 

 poised in the air, beneath the portal, take, as it were, a 

 little friendly peep in. Yet it is not all friendly, for I 

 have just seen a bird struggling for entrance, and 

 expelled by the proprietor of the nest — by the one 

 proprietor, I think, but both were at home, and my 

 impression is that if only one had been, the visitor 

 might have been well received, as, indeed, I have 

 seen and recorded. Now, too, I have seen a fight 

 in the air between two martins, a propos of an in- 

 tended entrance on the part of one of them. House- 

 martins, therefore, fight amongst themselves — as do 

 sand-martins, very violently — and this makes their 

 apparent total inability to defend themselves against 

 the attacks of sparrows, the more remarkable. No 

 doubt the sparrow is a stronger bird, but the martins, 

 with their superior powers of flight, might annoy it 

 incessantly when in the vicinity of the nest, to the 

 extent, perhaps, of driving it away. That they 

 should all combine for this purpose is, perhaps, too 

 much to expect, but when one sparrow, only, attacks 

 a pair of them, one might think that both would 

 retaliate. As we have seen, however, a pair of 

 martins, when attacked in this way upon three occa- 

 sions quite failed to do so. Probably the period of 

 fighting and striving has long ago been passed 

 through, and the sparrow, having come the victor 

 out of it, is now recognised as an inevitability. 

 It is better for any pair of house-martins — and 

 consequently for the race — to give up and build 



