104 WILD BIRDS 



THE HOUSE MARTIN 



The house martin has little of the swallow's fame, 

 though he deserves so much of it. The first swallow 

 of spring appeals to everybody : the first martin is 

 overlooked. The gathering of the swallows in 

 September for the autumn journey is a sight scarcely 

 less signal than the swallow's coming in spring 

 but who ever thought to remark on the gathcMin:; 

 of martins ? The swallow is in the folk-lore of most, 

 perhaps all, European nations ; but if the house 

 martin has a place at all in folk-lore, it is insignificant. 

 From earliest times in England the swallow has 

 ranked with the robin, the wren, the thrush. The 

 swallow, too, is with us and other nations the typical 

 instance of the migration of birds. 



In literature, for one reference to the martin it 

 would be easy to find a hundred to the swallow : 

 Shakespeare's eave-haunting marlets, nice judges 

 of a delicate air, is one of the very few familiar refer- 

 ences to the bird. Yet the house martin is a much 

 commoner bird in most English places than the 

 swallow. He is worried by sparrows, but holds 

 his own, and in most years is abundant in the vil- 

 lages and small towns. The house martin is not 

 quite so lovely a bird as the swallow. He wants 

 the perfect polish or sheen of plumage, and is 

 without the rich brown of the swallow and those 

 fine streamers to the tail. But, these apart, the 

 house martin is the swallow's match. In spright 

 and in flight he is the swallow's match. As nest 



