194 THE RED-FRONTED (OR CHIMNEY) SWALLOW. 



in window corners, like the house martin, but, while the eave- 

 forms the top, an opening is left for the birds to go in and out, 

 and if placed on a beam, the beam forms the bottom ; they some- 

 times stick their nests against a door or a gate which is hinged, 

 and on the top of a bough overhanging a pond or stream, but 

 usually in sheds and outhouses. I have often got their nests 

 with eggs and young on the horizontal rafters of old thrashing- 

 mills near the city, although the whirl and dirl of the mill went 

 on, and the horses walked round with them in their endless 

 wheel. On the 6th of August 1878, when down at Mr Gibson's 

 sawmill for wood, I saw the old birds feeding their ripe young 

 ones. The nest rested on a fillet three inches broad, only eight 

 feet from the floor. The half of the young were in the nest, 

 the rest on the fillet, not the least afraid, neither old nor young. 

 When the mother got a fly she flew past me and fed them — all 

 the time the whirring of the machinery and bustle of the mill 

 going on. Afterwards, when this mill was burned, where I often 

 saw both eggs and young, the glare of the burning reminded me 

 of Southey's picture of a fire at night — 



"From their clay -built nests, 

 Now first disturbed, the affirighted martin flies, 

 And, uttering notes of ten-or short and shrill, 

 Amid the yellow glare and lurid smoke, 

 Wheeled giddily." 



On the 5th June 1855, while waiting for the six o'clock 

 morning train in the old wooden station at the Links, on my 

 way to Tentsmuir, I saw them building on the cross rafters, and 

 on the 14th I got a nest with two eggs in a shed at the farm- 

 yard of St .Nicholas. There were other nests not finished. On 

 the 16th I went down to the railway station (where I saw them 

 building on the 5th), and, after repeated attempts, clambered up 

 one of the posts and got the nest with four eggs in it, which 

 proves the time they build and lay here. They lay four or five 

 oblong eggs, speckled over with small dark red spots — easily 

 known from all other eggs (like the Egyptians). The outer 

 crust of the nest is composed of mud or clay, with bits of straw 

 and some hairs to bind it together, amply lined with fine grass 

 or wool, and almost filled with feathers, but, like all birds, the 

 materials vary. They have generally two broods in the year — 

 the first fly in July, the second in the end of August ; and leave 

 us about the first of October. I saw some as late as the middle 

 of November in 1887. The first brood often nestle at night 

 along with the second brood and the old birds, or as many as 



