2i2 SEPTEMBER 



young birds, and the martin, whether young or old, is 

 much more talkative, though less sweet in voice, than 

 the swallow. The young have the habit, not very com 

 mon, I think, in the callow nestling, of chattering freely 

 in the nursery. Most nestlings alternate between a period 

 of surfeited coma and vociferous excitement at the 

 expectation of immediate food. They lie like dead 

 things with closed eyes and mouths and motionless 

 bodies till the chirp or movement of the parent is heard. 

 Not so that most vital youngster, the growing martin. 

 It is always expecting food and asking for it ; and is more 

 nearly its parents* equal. The old birds sleep in the nest 

 and the continuous noise rises into sharper notes when 

 the whole family is struggling to fit itself to the narrow 

 room. 



The nest is much more ingenious and elaborate than 

 &quot;the swallow s, though both are made inside and out of 

 similar materials. Both cultivate a device common to 

 them and the old English builder of lath and plaster 

 houses ; they mix their mortar with cow hair or other 

 material to give it a binding fibre. The swallow builds 

 a half or three-quarter saucer, the martin a sort of tea 

 pot. It reminds me always of a queen s cell in a beehive, 

 though it is neater, often very nearly a hollow sphere 

 with a narrow entrance near the top, like a long-tailed 

 tit s nest slightly tilted. They demand no support for 

 the under side of the nest ; but always demand a roof 

 over it. The nest itself is supported miraculously when 

 we consider the weight and agitation of the roosting 

 company wholly by the adhesive quality of the mud, 

 though in this particular colony a little extra support is 

 provided for the majority of the nests by the flanking 

 bricks. Here and there is a vertical line of nests, in one 

 place the lowest is not on the wall at all, but on the glass 



