78 THE RIVER-SIDE NATURALIST. 



The martin delights to return every year to its old 

 haunts, and either builds or repairs its old nest in the 

 same corner year after year. Fearless of man, from their 

 complete immunity from persecution, they mind not where 

 they build, and a story is told by Mr. Benson (see Dresser's 

 " Birds of Europe ") of a pair of martins building their nest 

 close to the wheel-house of the steamer Orn, which plied 

 regularly on the river between Carlstad and Lychan in 

 Sweden,, the nest being only a foot or two above the 

 water, and there they hatched their young. The birds 

 when incubating travelled with the steamer backwards and 

 forwards ; but when the young were hatched the parent 

 birds took up their quarters at Carlstad, and accompanied 

 the steamer half-way .on her trip, meeting her again on the 

 return journey at the same place. All of us have seen 

 how the sparrow will at times take the nest of the martin 

 for his abiding-place, and what fights occur to regain pos- 

 session ; and there is a story told that, indignant at the 

 outrage a pair of martins had received from this intruder, 

 they deliberately clayed him up. 



The martin from all time has been considered a sacred 

 bird. Drayton goes so far as to say that primitive man 

 made their huts of clay " learn'd from the martin ; " and 

 Shakespeare, in (< Macbeth : " 



" This guest of summer, 

 The temple-haunting martlet." 



Dryden calls it 



" A church-begot and church-believing bird." 



When one sees these birds in all their happiness of love 

 and nest-building, one recalls the lines in Wotton's beauti- 

 ful sonnet, " On a Spring Day : " 



" Already were the eaves possest 

 With the swift pilgrim's daubed nest." 



The velocity with which these birds fly was exemplified 

 by an experiment recently made in Ireland with a view 

 to ascertain this. On July 12 a house- martin (Chelidon 



