THE SAITO-MARTIN. 247 



the colour. It is also different in its flight, proceeding more 

 by jerks, and in that approaching the habit of some of the 

 other tribes of little birds; but still, it has all the leading 

 characters of the swallows. It comes, indeed, a little earlier, 

 and remains at least as late, but it is less the associate of man 

 than any of the rest : not that it shuns his neighbourhood, 

 and goes into the wilds; for though there are colonies of 

 sand-martins in lonely places, they are probably more nume- 

 rous in the cultivated districts. The vicinity of the water 

 is its hunting-ground, and gnats and other insects that sport 

 over the lakes and streams, or their banks, are its chief game ; 

 but its distribution is regulated also by the choice which it 

 makes of a nesting-place. Steep banks, or bluffs of sand, 

 which are easily dug into, and yet not subject to crumble by 

 the action of the summer rains, are its favourite places ; and 

 in the abrupt faces of these it forms its burrows, using its 

 bill as a pick-axe, and shovelling out the rubbish with its 

 feet, and often working so deep, that it is not easy to reach 

 the nest without digging. In these burrows its young are 

 very safe, as the aperture is too small for allowing any pre- 

 datory bird to enter, and the steep is generally such that 

 none of the small quadrupeds that eat eggs can climb it. 



These birds are not found in the rocky districts or on the 

 clays, neither are they partial to gravelly banks that are 

 either very hard or very loose. The fresh-water accumula- 

 tions of sand are their favourite places, especially where a 

 knoll of these materials has been cut through by a road or 

 the action of a rivulet. There are two reasons for that the 

 ease of working the bank, and the certainty with which it 

 stands, and the abundance of insect food which, from the 

 warmth of the climate, is found in such places. If the place 

 be otherwise favourable, they do not much heed the immediate 

 vicinity of a village, but will make their holes close to the 

 houses, and beat about with little less familiarity than those 



