86 MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. 



A HAPPY COUPLE. 



This would seem to show that the martins, though 

 they travel in flocks, also travel in the flocks in 

 pairs, because it would be very improbable, if they 

 flew in haphazard order, that a particular husband 

 and wife should arrive a day before all the others. 

 But it would also seem to show that when they are 

 nearing their journey's end, and are guiding their 

 course by familiar landmarks, the desire to reach 

 home is stronger than the tie which keeps the pairs 

 together; for the male bird had pushed on ahead, 

 had finished his unsuccessful skirmish with the spar- 

 rows, and selected another site, before his wife arrived. 

 Then the two together, by working hard till evening, 

 managed to rebuild the whole floor of the nest, and it 

 was very pleasant to hear their conversational twitter- 

 ing as they nestled together upon it, as though to 

 test its strength. They did not, however, expose 

 the damp mud to the risk of collapse under their 

 combined weight during the night, but retired else- 

 where to sleep. 



MORE BIRDS THAN NESTS. 

 Next day half a dozen more birds arrived with 

 the wind, among them the proper owners of the nest 

 which the first-comers had appropriated, and a 

 prolonged struggle for its possession ensued. After 

 wheeling round in mazy chase of each other, excitedly 

 twittering all the time, the birds would fly up to the 

 nest two at a time, grapple at the threshold, and fall 

 almost to the ground before they let go of each other. 

 The next instant their partners would similarly meet, 



