im THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



MARTIN. 



Chelidon urhica. 



The Martin arrives a little later than the Swallow, abont the 

 middle of April, and the main body have left us by the 

 middle of October. I have, however, occasionally met with 

 a few as late as November, on the 5th of which month I once 

 observed four, hawking for insects around the castle at Lewes. 

 These were young birds, as has been the case with nearly all 

 those I have seen so late in the year. These birds are much 

 persecuted by the Sparrows, who frequently take possession 

 of their nests, and not always with impunity; for in two 

 instances I have seen the Martins stop up the entrance of 

 one, in which the Sparrows had young ; once at Shelford, 

 near Cambridge, about the year 1839, and again at Martin 

 Lodge, Henfield, in 1842 or 1843. In the former case 

 seven Martins were busily thus engaged, and in spite of the 

 resistance of one of the old Sparrows, if not of both, from the 

 inside of the nest, they succeeded in imprisoning them. The 

 Martin usually affixes its mud-built nest on the wall under 

 the eaves of a house, or beneath the architrave of a window, 

 sometimes on the underside of a mass of chalk projecting 

 from a cliff. A colony of these birds will frequently breed 

 in close proximity, and a row of perhaps a dozen nests may 

 be seen together. They seldom alight on the ground, except 

 when collecting mud for their nests, the feathers with which 

 they line thera, being often captured in flight while floating 

 in the air. 



