AUTUMN, 1912 289 



" They will be out in a day or two," I said con- 

 fidently. The people of the house informed me that 

 this same nest had been occupied, off and on, through- 

 out the summer ; and if we take it that eggs were laid 

 at the beginning of May, it must be assumed that this 

 pair of martins had been occupied almost continuously 

 with the breeding business for six months, and were 

 now rearing their third, or possibly their fourth brood. 

 A long period when we consider that they could not 

 have had a worse season : bad everywhere in England, 

 it was exceptionally so on the Norfolk coast, where the 

 winds and cold were most felt and the flooding rains 

 in August were greatest. 



As the young birds did not come out during the 

 tVv^o following days, I began to look for their abandon- 

 ment, whereupon the women of the house com- 

 passionately offered to take them in and feed them, in 

 the hope of keeping them alive until the return of warm 

 weather, when they would be liberated. From that 

 time onwards they and others in the town who had 

 begun to take an interest in the birds helped me to 

 keep a watch on the nest. Assuredly the young would 

 be abandoned and that very shortly; the weather 

 was rough and cold, food becoming scarcer each day ; 

 and for a month or six weeks the impulse to fly south, 

 the " mighty breath, which in a powerful language, 

 felt not heard, instructs the fowls of heaven," must 

 have been worrying the brains of those two overworked 

 little martins. 



But again the expected did not happen ; the parents 

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