252 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



LV.) : 'About the middle of May, if the weather 

 be fine, the martin begins to think in earnest of 

 providing a mansion for its family.' This is my 

 experience too, and in East Anglia, at any rate, 

 where May is generally like a bad March, and often 

 colder, I am sure he never thinks about it sooner. 

 Neither in Dorsetshire, too, when I was last there, 

 did any martins begin building, in a village where 

 they build all down the street, before about the 

 middle of May, as White says, and when I inquired 

 for them, a week or ten days sooner, the cottage 

 people, who must know their habits in this respect, 

 told me it was too early for them yet. Elsewhere, 

 'tis true, we read that the martin ' sets about build- 

 ing very soon after its return, which may be about 

 the middle of April,' though I never remember 

 them here before May. This is not my experience, 

 nor was it White's, who says and, I believe, with 

 great correctness * For some time after they 

 appear, the hirundines in general pay no attention to 

 the business of nidification, but play and sport about, 

 either to recruit from the fatigue of their journey, 

 or,' &c. &c. (Letter LV.) (the rest of the sen- 

 tence is historically interesting). However, let some 

 young martins, in some places, be as precocious as 

 they like, this I know, that none were abroad in 

 Icklingham, in the year 1901, upon the 5th of June. 

 The several birds, therefore, that attended one nest 

 in the way I have described, were old, and not young, 

 birds, and I connect their conduct with those other 

 cases I have mentioned, which point towards a 

 socialistic tendency in this species. 



" 24//J. Watching from the landing window, this 



