390 HIEUNDINID^. 



in the north of Ireland of late years, does not present such favour- 

 able sites for the nests of the martin, as that of an older date. 

 Not only the " buttress and coign of vantage " are wanting, but 

 the less feudal, though to the martin equally useful appendage, — 

 the antiquated holdfast of the wooden spout, is now disused. Upon 

 this the mud fabric was wont to be raised, ample room being 

 afforded for the nest between its base and the spout which it sup- 

 ported. When in Ballymena, in July, 1833, I observed the pre- 

 dilection of the martin for the older houses to be so strongly 

 marked, that against those in the more ancient part of the town, 

 their nests were numerous, while not one was to be seen 

 about any of the modern erections. With reference to this pro- 

 pensity, an instance may be mentioned, which suggests another 

 cause, that influences the choice of site ; — namely, the martin's 

 being prone to return to its birth-place.* During a week's stay 

 in the summer of 1833, at the picturesque sea-bathing village of 

 Portstewart (co. Londonderry), which had been lately built, not 

 one of these martins appeared, though the place was in many re- 

 spects peculiarly suited to them. Although their abode was not 

 taken up there, yet in the high and time-worn precipices which 

 rise above the ocean at only a short distance to the eastward of 

 the village, these birds were always to be seen. Particularly 

 graceful they appeared, when gliding to and from their nests, 

 placed beneath the summit of the stupendous basaltic arch that 

 pierces the isolated mass of rock on which the ruins of a castle 

 are situated. 



This Hirundo is so partial to the noble basaltic precipices — 

 rising directly above, or contiguous to the sea — which form the 

 leading features of the north-east coast of Ireland, that it is 

 always to be seen about them during the more genial seasons of 



* Mr. Jesse, in the second series of his Gleanings in Natural History, gives the 

 following extract from the unpublished journal of White of Selborne: — "July 6, 

 1783. Some young martins came out of the nest over the garden door. This nest 

 was built in 1777, ami has been used ever since." A nest built against a spout-hcad 

 iu York-street, Belfast, was occupied for four years successively. It has becu proved 

 by Capt. King, 11. N., and Mr. Weir, that the same birds return annually to the same 

 locality. — See Macgillivray's British Birds, vol. iii. p. 592. 



