186 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



martins. At the former I counted thirteen martins' 

 mud nests stuck to the wall of a small cottage opposite 

 to the house I was staying at. These nests and some 

 hundreds more were occupied, and mostly had young 

 birds in them ; yet more nests were being made, and 

 if a woman came out of her front door and emptied a 

 bucket of dirty water in the road, half a dozen martins 

 would quickly drop down on the wet place to get a 

 little mortar for the nests they were building. The 

 ancient chimneys and picturesque red-tiled roofs of 

 the houses were as attractive to the swallows as the 

 walls under the eaves to the martins. The birds were 

 in hundreds. Sitting at a front window, while waiting 

 for my breakfast, the air seemed full of swallows 

 whirling about like house-flies hi a room, and of the 

 sound of their voices. Presently another sound was 

 heard, something between a rumbling and a fluttering, 

 and down the chimney into the room flew or tumbled 

 a swallow. I closed the window and tried to catch it 

 to put it out, but the poor bird flew wildly about the 

 room and I could not get near it. Now I noticed that 

 although the two well-cleaned windows at the front 

 were in appearance two patches of shining light and 

 open ways to liberty, the bird in all his wild flights 

 about the large dim room never touched them. 

 Almost any other bird would have instantly dashed 

 himself against the glass. Tired of the vain chase, 

 I finally put up one sash of a window and sat down : 

 at once the captive, doubtless feeling a way of escape 



