112 BIRDS' NESTS 



certain individuals of each of these species still retain- 

 ing the normal methods, and serving as an indication 

 of the source whence the divergence has sprung. Thus 

 the Martins and Swifts and Jackdaws and Sparrows 

 that now crowd into man's dwellings and masonry 

 still retain in many instances the habit of breeding in 

 cliffs, in caves and hollow trees, as no doubt all the 

 ancestral individuals did at some more or less remote 

 epoch. Possibly the habit may date its change from 

 the earliest era in which man commenced to make an 

 artificial shelter ; and to this day there are certain 

 species as familiar with savage man, nesting in or 

 about his huts and rude dwelling-places, as others are 

 with his more civilised brother. The House Bunting 

 {Emheriza saharce) of Algeria is so familiar with the 

 Arabs that Canon Tristram tells us there are few 

 houses in the M'zab without a few pairs in their 

 courtyard, and I have also repeatedly remarked its 

 trustful familiarity about the mud-built houses of the 

 Arabs in the Tell and the Desert. Then, again, a 

 South African Swallow (Himndo sniithi) makes itself 

 equally at home with the Kaffirs, building its nest on 

 the roof-trees of their huts, and flying in and out 

 through the doorways, utterly oblivious to the crowds 

 of children playing near them. 



Amongst the Pipits (Motacillidae) there are some 

 occasional rock-builders, and others more or less 

 habitual ones. The Meadow Pipit {Anthus pratensis) 

 sometimes builds its artless little cup-shaped nest 



