266 RURAL BIRD LIFE. 



numerous. The food of the Sand Martin is composed 

 of insects, and the refuse is cast up in Httle pellets. 



The second of these birds, the House Martin, is 

 found in all places suitable to the Swallow, with whom 

 it congregates, although it arrives much sooner and 

 departs a little earlier than that bird. 



The flight of the Martin is slightly different from the 

 Swallow. Martins, as a rule, if a rule can be applied to 

 such a motion as flight, do not fly so swiftly. You can 

 tell the Martin from the Swallow by the patch of snowy 

 white plumage on the back and rump, and the absence of 

 the acutely forked tail. When the rain is falling heavily 

 the Martin seeks shelter from its downpour, but when 

 the summer rain is falling soft and light, and everything 

 bears that refresliing sweetness so prominent during a 

 summer shower, they delight to course through the 

 heavens, and it is then their flight may be seen to per- 

 fection. Now the birds glide rapidly past you, and then 

 with fluttering pinions climb the vault of air ; then down 

 again with a smooth gliding motion they sail gracefully 

 to the ground, to again mount upwards and sail in track- 

 less course. Now we see them gliding round the trees, 

 and when they mount the air with depressed tail and 

 fluttering wings their fine white plumage shows con- 

 spicuously against the sober greens of summer vegeta- 

 tion. But their flight is so infinitely varied withal, that 

 the pen does little in attempting to describe it, and the 

 birds must be seen in ferd naturd to form a correct idea 

 of its airy gracefulness. I have been thus minute in 

 describing the flight of this aerial group of songsters, 

 because they spend so much time in the air, that their 

 motions in that element form one of their chief 

 characteristics. 



The song of the Martin is heard but rarely, and when 



