44 AN EAST COAST NATURALIST 



amusing themselves by inserting long bramble stems, 

 which they had wormed around in circular fashion, 

 and having caught the nests on the hook-like thorns, 

 had pulled them out. The nests were built or 

 tumbled together of dried Flustra folmcea^ picked up 

 from the beach below, and lined with small white 

 Gull feathers gleaned in the same locality. 



The queerest nesting-place of Sand-Martins I have 

 seen was at Thorpe, in holes in a brick wall, the 

 foundations of which are lapped by the waters of the 

 Yare. The tenants popped in and out, evidently 

 as satisfied with their mansions as any of their 

 friends who had chosen the drier sand holes in a 

 sand-pit. 



I like the Sand-Martin : he is a silent, confident 

 little fellow. He is the hardiest of his race, and puts 

 on no airs. He is the best of company when one 

 chooses to tramp along through the rank grasses 

 topping Breydon walls p when for mile after mile 

 a muster of them continue flitting around, like a 

 swarm of gigantic bees, snapping up, often within 

 arm's length, the dipterous insects brushed out of 

 the grass by the pedestrian. Again in autumn this 

 Martin flits around you along by the seashore, 

 especially if you are near to the tide-mark, where 



