THE SWALLOW TRIBE. 347 



US a few days after the swallow, has, also, a low 

 guttural and pleasing song. Trusting its nest, with 

 all its precious charge, immediately under our 

 very eaves, and in the corners of our windows, we 

 may often hear the gentle notes of the bird, and 

 watch the process by which the mud chamber is 

 gradually shaped into a comfortable and sheltered 

 dwelling-place, destined, probably, for rearing a 

 great number of young martins in the course of 

 successive summers. 



The Sand Martin* [Hirnndo rijyaria)^ demands 

 but a short notice, for it cannot be said to sing, 

 though it utters some low notes which are rather 

 sweet. It has an ingenious mode of making itself 

 and its family very comfortable, and dwells with 

 many others of its species in little colonies, all of 

 them helping to mine their way into cliffs and 

 sandbanks, and placing the nest in these excava- 

 tions. The sharp, hard bill seems admirably 

 adapted for a mining instrument, and om* bird 

 uses it skilfully, as he hangs on with his strong 

 claws, gradually rounding the aperture, till it is 



* The Sand Martin is four inches and three-quarters in length. 

 Upper parts dark brown; under parts white; a band of brown 

 crosses the breast : beak and feet dark brown. 



