250 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



birds, therefore — supposing them to be the same 

 ones — missed a year, and then built in the same 

 place as two years ago. There were only the stains 

 of the old structures left, but these were covered by 

 the fresh mud, as a head is by a skull-cap. These 

 martins, therefore, assuming them to have been the 

 same, must either not have built, last year, or, having 

 had to build somewhere else, they must yet have re- 

 membered their old place of the year before, and 

 come back to it. 



" 5//^. — This evening 1 watched my martins from 

 the landing window, at only a few yards' distance. 

 Two had made nests on a wall that stood, at an 

 angle, just outside, and in either one or both of 

 these nests, one of the two birds was usually sitting. 

 Thus, either two or three more, as the case might 

 be, were wanted to make up the two pairs that 

 owned the two nests. But instead of two or three, 

 often six or eight, at a time, would be fluttering 

 under the nests, and a still greater number circled 

 round about, from which these came, at intervals, 

 to flutter there. That every one of these birds 

 was interested, in some way and to some degree, 

 in the two nests, was quite obvious. They seemed, 

 often, on the point of clinging to one, with a view 

 to entering it, and to be stopped, only, by the bird 

 inside giving, each time, a funny little bubbling 

 twitter, which seemed, by its effect, to mean, 

 ' No, not you ; you're not the right one.' But 

 whenever a bird did enter one of the nests, he 

 flew straight at it, and was in, in a moment, being 

 received — if the other one was at home — with a 

 shriller and louder note, something like a scream. 



