2 8 Summer Studies of Birds and Books CHAP. 



mental indigestion by giving the fling to their native 

 barbarism ? 



At Interlaken, and again at Meiringen, which we 

 reached that night, we paid special attention to the 

 nests of the House-martins. My old friend Anderegg, 

 who has lived at Meiringen all his life, has often 

 told me that these birds always build there under 

 the ledges of rocks, and never on houses ; and in 

 fact the name by which they are known in the 

 valley is Fliihspie or Eock- martin. As here and 

 there in England, they have held to their original 

 and natural habit, and have not been tempted by 

 the buildings which man erects. But this year we 

 were able to show Anderegg several nests built 

 under the eaves against timber, and he was obliged 

 to believe the evidence of his own eyes. It may be 

 that this had been going on some time unnoticed by 

 him; it had become a fixed idea in his mind that 

 the bird builds in one way, and it would not occur 

 to him that circumstances may possibly induce it to 

 build in another. He would not be likely to reflect 

 that a change in the character of human architecture 

 may have led the Swallow tribe to take advantage of 

 it. Now, within my own recollection of Meiringen 

 there has been a marked improvement in the 

 architecture, not indeed in the beauty of the 

 buildings, but in their size and substantiality. When 

 I first knew it, it consisted almost entirely of very 



