ARMITT: WALLS AND WALL-NESTERS. 245 
in trees sometimes. ‘The patriarch yew before mentioned held each 
summer a brood or two of nestlings in its rugged tower of trunk, 
Amongst the smaller Passeres are many hole-nesters. The Pied 
Flycatcher is one ; while its fellow, the Spotted Flycatcher, though 
always seeking solid support for its slightly-constructed nest (which 
indeed comes to grief pretty often from an ill-chosen site) prefers a 
more open situation, and will build against the arm of a tree, or in 
a concavity of lopped bough. The race of true Warblers, deft 
weavers as they are, need nothing but a slope of ground or spread 
of fine bush-bough on which to rest, or from which to swing, their 
light and well-twined cradles. But the Redstart, near them in class, 
is an inveterate hole-nester. So too is the Black Redstart, which 
does not nest in England. 
Amongst the Chats, while others seek the open, the Wheatear 
wantsahole. The Tree-Creeper and Nuthatch are unequivocal hole- 
breeders, associated entirely, like the Woodpeckers, with trees, which 
they practically never leave. 
Then come the Titmice, notable examples all of them, except 
the Long-tailed and the rare Bearded, of this ancient and simple style 
of nesting. It is remarkable that the two exceptions in this large 
family of purely cushion-builders (for nothing more than a heap of 
material is needed in a hole; it is the easiest form of construction) 
are the most exquisite and skilful of avian architects. : 
Amongst Wagtails, the Pied seeks hole or cover, though entirely 
apart from arboreal life. Pipits and Buntings, as well as sunshine- 
loving Larks, favour the open. Finches, too, are skilful builders, 
and do not fancy a tunnel for their homes. Yet, even amongst . 
them, there is one, the Tree-Sparrow, that pecks a hole in rotten 
wood (oft of pollard willows) and nests therein. 
As for Swifts and Swallows, how shall they be classed? The 
former chooses a dark aperture, but it is below the roofs that man has 
Wrought ; the latter seeks his chimneys and his barn-timbers for nest- 
support and shelter. The Martin keeps to the full light of his outer- 
wall eaves. What was the pristine habit of these shelter-loving 
birds? Have they, the true inhabitants of air, evolved alongside 
of man, and spread as he spread, building from the first against his 
clay-and-wattle walls, their clay-and-spittle shelter for their unfledg 
young?» Have they never known an existence wholly separated from 
Kilnsey Crag in Yorkshire, and the sea-cliff at Saltburn, against 
Precipice and scar? And did all the Swallows come from a com- 
mon parentage with those that yet build their sticky nests against 
the roofs of dark and rocky caves? 3 
