THE HOUSE-MARTIN. 391 



the year. Clustering in numbers against these gloomy cliffs, its 

 " pendent bed " may be observed in many places throughout the 

 range ; among others, at the Gobbins, where some hundreds 

 annually breed. About the Giant's Causeway, their admirably 

 buoyant flight has particularly attracted me, as they skimmed the 

 varied surface of the shelving banks and rugged rocks, keeping 

 with an easy grace the same distance from the ground, not- 

 withstanding the extreme inequality of surface. The house-mar- 

 tin "is the most numerous of the genus in Eathlin, where it is 

 found in all parts of the island, as well inland as along the cliffs 

 which overhang the sea." It builds in " the range of white cliffs 

 running along the north-western side of Church bay."* I observed 

 considerable numbers of their nests in May, 1842, built in a 

 similar manner, against the high and white limestone precipices 

 of the Little Deer Park, Glenarm (county of Antrim). So many 

 as twenty of them were in some places in juxtaposition. They 

 almost overhang one side of the new line of road lately formed at 

 the base of the cliffs, previously washed by the sea.f 



About the sea-girt rocks of the peninsula of the Horn, in Done- 

 gal ; those near to Ardmore in the county of Waterford ; at the 

 island of Lambay off the Dublin coast ; and other similar locali- 

 ties, I have remarked the presence of the martin. It is said 

 by Capt. Cook, | to breed in vast numbers among the rocks of the 

 Alps and Pyrenees, often far from the habitation of man. 



Martins occasionally build under the arches of bridges. At 

 Toome bridge, where the river Bann leaves Lough Neagh, I saw 

 many of their nests in 1834, and was told that for a long period 

 it had been a favourite haunt. In 1846, the following notes were 

 made during a stay of three days at Toome : — August the 1 st. 



* Dr. J. D. Marshall, in the same memoir, mentions, that one of these birds 

 which he shot, " had its mouth completely filled with insects, among which were a 

 large dragon-fly, and one of the Tipulce [T. oleracea]." White of Selborne has re- 

 marked, that swifts and sand-martins feed on Libellulce. 



f In rocks of a similar kind, though in a very different scene, — the chalk-cliffs, 

 which rise above the river Derwent, near Cromford, Derbyshire, — I observed many 

 nests of the martin, in June, 1835. They were built as far in as possible beneath 

 the overhanging rocks, in the same manner as under a projecting roof. 

 \ Sketches in Spain, vol. ii. p. 275. 



