THE HOUSE MARTIN. 279 



been proved by several experiments, that tlie same birds 

 return year after year to their old nests, and it is hard to 

 believe, so thoroughly delighted do they seem, that they 

 are guided simply by an impassive instinct. If so, why 

 should they hang about the "old house at home" so many 

 days before they begin to set in order again the future 

 nursery? No elaborate plans of alterations and improve- 

 ments are to be devised ; last year's family are launched on 

 the world, and are quite equal to building for their own 

 accommodation. No collecting of materials is requisite. The 

 muddy edge of the nearest pond will provide plaster 

 enough and to spare to carry out all necessary repairs : 

 shreds of straw are to be had for the picking up, and farm- 

 yard feathers are as plentiful as of yore. It would seem 

 then a reasonable conclusion, that a bird endowed with 

 an instinct powerful enough to guide it across the ocean, 

 and a memory sufficiently powerful to lead it to the snug 

 window corner of the same cottage where it reared its first 

 biood, may live in the past as well as the present, and that 

 its seeming joyousness is a reality, even mixed perhaps 

 with hopeful anticipations of the future. 



As the reader may, if he wdll, have ample opportunity of 

 watching the habits of a bird that probably builds its nest 

 under the eaves of his own house, whether he dwell in a 

 to^vn, a village, or a lonely cottage, it is unnecessary to 

 enter into further details of its biography. I must, 

 however, say a few words on the often repeated story of the 

 entombment of the Sparrow who had unfairly appropriated 

 the nest of a Martin. The intruder, so say the authorities 

 (and several instances are recorded), having successfully 

 resisted the endeavours of a dozen or twenty Martins to 

 dislodge him, was walled up with plaster by the aggrieved 

 party, who made common cause against him, and was sub- 

 sequently taken out dead by the person who observed the 

 incident. Some of the earlier naturalists relate instances 

 of this without expressing any doubt of its accuracy ; somo 



