PRODIGIOUS INDUSTRY 



martins make their nests. It sometimes happens that a 

 pair of these birds succeed in a few days in piercing a hole 

 a yard or more in depth and about three inches wide. 

 Whilst they are thus occupied their activity is prodigious. 

 You may see them laboriously gathering up in their claws 

 the loose earth which results from the tunnelling and casting 

 it out of the hole with great energy. After beginning one 

 hole, it is no uncommon thing for them to abandon it and to 

 commence a fresh one ; indeed, they sometimes act thus when 

 the first dwelling has actually been completed ; for what 

 reason it is difficult to say. The birds are so completely 

 engrossed in their labours that one might imagine, no longer 

 seeing them flying about, that they had left the country 

 again ; but you have only to strike the ground over their 

 nesting-place with your foot, and in a moment you see them 

 dart out of their tunnels. When the bird is sitting, how- 

 ever, she often will not leave the nest even though a hand or 

 a stick be thrust into the hole. 



The nest-holes vary considerably in depth, some being 

 comparatively shallow, while others may, as we have already 

 stated, extend more than a yard from the opening, which is 

 usually narrower than the part beyond. Each ends in 

 a spacious chamber containing a slight nest composed of 

 a little soft straw, with some feathers, and perhaps a few 

 hairs. Generally from twenty to a hundred or more pairs 

 nest in close proximity to one another; it sometimes 

 happens, however, that the birds take up their abode in holes 

 in a rock or in an old wall, and in such cases their dwellings 

 are of necessity not only further apart, but much more 

 shallow than those bored in sand. 



There is a little South American bird called Geositta 

 cunicularia which is nearly allied to the oven-bird, but has 

 habits very different from those of its relative, for instead of 



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