242 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



Yet it is half in the throat, too, it would seem, and 

 often as though on the point of being swallowed. 

 At last, however, it is dropped on the rim that 

 part of it so often touched. Then the bird begins 

 to feel and touch this mud, and I see a gleam of 

 something white between the mandibles, which, I 

 think, is the tongue feeling, perhaps shaping, it. 

 The other bird now flies off, and I see this one, 

 quite plainly, pick up a pellet of mud and swallow 

 it. This, with the swollen and globular-looking 

 throat, which I have kept remarking, seems to make 

 it likely that the mud used in building is swallowed 

 and disgorged. Another visit, now, but I cannot 

 quite make things out. I see a bit of mud held 

 in the beak, and after, if not before, this, the bird 

 has made actions as though trying to bring up 

 something out of its throat. However, I cannot 

 sit longer against the wall of my own house. 



" i6th. At 6 A.M. one of the martlets comes to 

 the nest, and, as he settles down upon it, he utters 

 notes that are like a little song, and very pretty to 

 hear. Lying, thus, in the nest, he just touches the 

 edge of it with the beak, but, though the throat 

 looks quite globular, no mud, that I can see, is 

 deposited. He shifts, then, so as to lie the opposite 

 way, and, soon after, flies off, making his pretty little 

 parachute drop from the brink, as usual. Soon he 

 returns for I watch him circling and stays a very 

 short time, during which no mud is deposited. The 

 nest, too, I notice, seems to have advanced very little 

 since I left it yesterday, though this was no later 

 than 7 A.M. Another musical meeting, now, and 

 the arriving bird, finding the musician on the nest, 



