LOU BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 
lip—so to speak—to be left in the wall to afford ingress and ° 
egress to the owners. The nest, in either case, is built with many 
pellets of soft tenacious earth, wrought into form with bits of 
straw or grass, and afterwards lined with feathers. It is observable 
that no more work at the nest is done ina day than will readily 
harden enough to bear the requisite additions of materials above, 
when the time comes for making them. There are usually four, 
five, or six eggs laid; white, speckled and spotted with deep 
red, and a lighter duller shade.—/%y. 20, plate IV. 
140. MARTIN—(Hirundo urbica). 
Martlet, Martin Swallow, House Martin, Window Martin 
Eaves Swallow, Window Swallow.—This familiar little bird. 
whose cheeping note in the nests above our chamber windows is 
one of the sounds we should sorely miss, frequents the dwellings 
of men quite as much as, I think more than, the Swallow. Every 
one knows where to look for the Martin’s nest, and many a house 
can we all call to mind which seems, from some peculiarity in its 
site or external fashion, to be particularly affected by these birds 
—and certainly, in most cases, the inmates of the house take 
rouch care to save their confiding feathered friends from disturb- 
ance. In many places, however, the Martin forms large nesting 
colonies, which take possession of a series of overhanging ledges 
on some steep rocky face, and there build their nests in great 
numbers. In Berwickshire, on the banks of the Whiteadder, I 
knew of such a colony, and others elsewhere: the principal ones, 
however, being on the rock-bound coast between St. Abb’s Head 
and Burnmouth. Hundreds of these birds nested in several 
different places upon those lofty precipices. No description of 
the nest itself—beyond what was said in the notice of the Swal- 
low—seems requisite. The number of eggs, which are perfectly 
white, seems seldom to exceed six. 
