THE NIGHTJAR AND THE SWALLOW. 57 
seeming to enjoy a prescriptive right to it, which is 
respected by all his fellows. 
As the diet of the swift and the two martins is 
of exactly the same character as that of the swallow, 
I have thought it necessary to call attention to it 
only in the one case. Suffice it to say that all 
four birds are strictly beneficial, that no misdeeds— 
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The Sand-martin. 
save the very trifling offence of disfiguring human 
habitations by their own—can be brought against 
any one of the four, and that, like the nightjar, 
they are indubitably entitled to all the protection 
and encouragement which we can extend to them. 
In the words of a writer of eighty years since, “they 
should everywhere be protected by the same popular 
veneration which in Egypt defends the ibis, and the 
stork in Holland.” 
