SWALLOWS AND CHURCHES 195 



40 or 50 yards. This crowd niiinbered about 300 ; 

 I counted them, and they always, when they settled 

 on the wires, occupied the same spot, and in about 

 the same numbers. A short distance away, at the 

 end of the village street, a second lot, numbering 

 about 150, would congregate. There were no chimney- 

 swallows in these two crowds : it was rare even to see 

 more than two or three adult martins among the 

 young birds. The two gatherings were composed of 

 martins bred in the village, and now able to take 

 care of themselves : the parent birds were all occu- 

 pied in hatching more eggs and feeding more young 

 — second and third broods. Here, then, were 450 

 house-martins reared in the village by the middle of 

 August ; and as breeding would go on for five or six 

 weeks longer, at least 150 more birds would be reared, 

 making an increase of 600 in this species for the 

 season. The chimney-swallows would rear altogether 

 not less than 200 young, so that the total swallow 

 increase would be at least 800. 



The young martins were very tame, and were a 

 pretty and interesting ornament of the village, attract- 

 ing a good deal of attention even from the most stolid 

 of the natives, as they sat preening their feathers and 

 dozing in the hot sun, rows on rows of birds above 

 the noisy little street, seen sharply against that ever 

 cloudless bright blue summer sky. 



Lying in bed at five o'clock in the morning I could 

 ^ee and admire them, as they were directly before and 



