2 AN EAST COAST NATURALIST 



half-circular in shape. The parent birds had access 

 through the open hatchway; and were delighted 

 eventually to see their progeny all safely started in 

 life, notwithstanding the fact that at high water 

 their tiny domicile was suspended in the centre of two 

 thousand acres of not always placid salt water. 



For some years there has been noticed here, as 

 in many other localities, a steady falling-off in the 

 numbers of Swallows frequenting the town ; certain 

 old chimneys, peopled by successive generations, 

 even having been deserted. A pair built in a shaft 

 erected immediately over a main sewer for the pur- 

 poses of ventilation probably the most offensive 

 spot on earth they could have discovered. They 

 frequented it for some years. 



Those quaint old windmills, which effect so much 

 of the drainage of the marshes and adjacent lowlands, 

 and which give such a picturesque appearance to the 

 flat landscape, are favourite quarters of this species, 

 whose nests are found inside them, in the most 

 curious of situations. The birds in most cases enter 

 and leave the mill through broken window-panes, or 

 a decayed and crumbled corner of a door or shutter ; 

 sometimes through some niche above a misfitting 

 door or shutter. I have overhauled several mills, 



