86 SUMMER 



of the north and west, for there are fewer calm pools suitable 

 for their minnow-fishing; but they are found sparingly on 

 many such waters, and also in rocky harbours and estuaries 

 by the sea. The common situation for the nest-hole is in 

 some vertical loamy bank of the river, or a bordering ditch 

 or backwater ; but occasionally they choose a bank some 

 hundreds of yards inland from their fishing-grounds, or even 

 a crevice in a quarry. The hole is much like a water-rat's, 

 but more evenly oval ; it leads into a gallery about two feet 

 long, at the end of which the round white eggs are laid. 

 The birds usually dig a fresh gallery each year, and the con- 

 dition of the kingfisher's nest at the end of the season is 

 certainly not attractive to any but an exceptionally dirty 

 bird. Since they are nursed in the security of this deep 

 hole, the young birds can afford to develop in their first 

 plumage the conspicuous family dress ; and the same in- 

 fluence determines that the eggs shall be white, since in 

 their position of safety they have no need to mimic their 

 surroundings. 



Sand-martins also nest here and there along the little 

 earthy cliffs of the river, though the favourite site for one of 

 their colonies is in some inland sand-pit. By streams lack- 

 ing dry and friable banks, but otherwise attractive to them, 

 they have been found, nesting in narrow drain-pipes built into 

 a stone embankment, and even in galleries bored in the soft 

 wood of rotten willows. Sand-martins are as gregarious as 

 kingfishers are solitary, and flutter like clouds of Mayflies 

 above the midsummer stream. House-martins fly more 

 strongly, and in more sweeping curves, and swallows more 

 boldly still ; but the swift is the lord of the swallows by right 

 of swallow-like flight, though he is no real swallow. One of 

 the delights of the streamside meadows in summer is to 

 watch the swifts rushing past so close and low that we can 



