60 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



dark brown. The site which the swallow proper 

 chooses for its nest is usually upon beam or rafter 

 of barn or shed, and rarely in chimneys, as one of its 

 provincial names would seem to imply. Many and 

 curious are the sites chosen from time to time by the 

 birds, and not least so that where a pair of swallows 

 affixed their nest to the body of a dead owl, which 

 next year being replaced by a conch shell they 

 occupied that too. As well as there being several 

 distinguishing points between the swallows and the 

 martins, there is also one point of great difference in 

 the nests. Those of the former species are left 

 completely open above, so that there is quite a 

 sensible space above the edge of the nest and the 

 structure to which it is affixed; whilst the nest of 

 the martin is built up to and closed in by the over- 

 hanging ledge or eave, a hole being left for exit and 

 entrance. 



As with swallows, martins have been found through 

 every month of the year in this country. The birds 

 which so remain are probably those latest hatched, 

 and which, at the time of migration, find themselves 

 too weak to follow the main body retreating south; 

 for it is a fact well known to ornithologists that 

 martins have two, occasionally three, and some- 

 times even four broods during the season, and that 

 the young birds, according to their strength and 

 power of wing, return at different periods. Like 



