WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



ward; . . . the bird consequently assumes all po- 

 sitions while at work in the interior, hanging from 

 the roof of the gallery with its back downward 

 as often as standing on the floor. We have more 

 than once, indeed, seen a bank-martin wheeling 

 slowly round in this manner on the face of a sand- 

 bank when it was just breaking ground to begin 

 its gallery. 



"This manner of working, however, from the 

 circumference to the centre unavoidably leads to 

 irregularities in the direction. . . . Accordingly, 

 all the galleries are found to be more or less tortu- 

 ous to their termination, which is at the depth of 

 from two to three feet, where a bed of loose hay 

 and a few of the smaller breast-feathers of geese, 

 ducks, or fowls is spread with little art for the re- 

 ception of the four to six white eggs. It may not 

 be unimportant to remark, also, that it always 

 scrapes out with its feet the sand detached by the 

 bill ; but so carefully is this performed that it never 

 scratches up the unmined sand, or disturbs the 

 plane of the floor, which rather slopes upward, and 

 of course the lodgment of rain is thereby prevented. " 



An exceedingly interesting chapter in Edmund 

 Selous's Bird Watching is given to this bird, from 

 which I wish to quote a few lines as to its work : 



284 



