May Varieties of Nest-building. 145 



hands, and the satisfaction their rough work gave them 

 was evidently of a kind that no wealth could ever pur- 

 chase. Observe the zest with which travellers in wild 

 countries, who have been compelled to erect dwellings 

 for themselves, describe the interesting process, and 

 gravely give directions to others, a spirit of the keenest 

 enjoyment being visible throughout the prudence of 

 their precepts ! 



I have noticed the wide difference of refinement and 

 skill in nest-building between such different birds as the 

 magpie and the thrush, linnets, &c., but Gilbert White 

 remarked that there was a great disparity in this respect 

 between 'birds of the same genus, and nearly corre- 

 spondent in their general mode of life; for while the 

 swallow and the house-martin discover the greatest 

 address in raising and securely fixing crusts, or shells, 

 of loam, as cunabula for their young, the bank-martin 

 terebrates a round and regular hole in the sand or earth, 

 which is serpentine, horizontal, and about two feet deep. 

 At the inner end of this burrow does this bird deposit, 

 in a good degree of safety, her rude nest, consisting of 

 fine grasses and feathers, usually goose-feathers, very 

 inartificially laid together.' Here, in a very few words, 

 he perfectly describes what is most wonderful in the 

 skilful toil of the swallows and house-martins, their 

 address in raising and securely fixing the crusts they 

 build so cleverly. The raising, however, is compara- 

 tively mechanical ; it is the fixing that always surprises 

 one. Some windows in the old house at the Val Ste. 

 Veronique had been left unopened for years, and the 



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