Martins Nests. 169 
CHAPTER IX. 
THE ORCHARD—EMIGRANT MARTINS—THE MISSEL-THRUSH 
—CARAVAN ROUTE OF BIRDS AND ANIMALS—A FOX IN 
AMBUSH—A SNAKE IN A CLOCK, 
BROAD green paths, wide enough for three or four to 
walk abreast, lead from the garden at Wick into the 
orchard. On the side next the meadows the orchard 
is enclosed by a hawthorn hedge, thick from constant 
cropping ; on the other a solid stone wall, about nine 
feet high, parts it from the road. One summer day 
a party of martins attacked this wall outside, and 
endeavoured to make their nest-holes in it. These 
birds are called by the labourers ‘ quar-martins,’ 
because they breed in holes drilled in the face of the 
sandy precipices of quarries. The boys ‘draw’ their 
nests—climbing up at the risk of their limbs—by 
inserting a long briar, and, when they feel the nest, 
giving it a twist which causes the hooked prickles of 
the stick to take firm hold, and the nest is then 
dragged bodily out. The flight that came to the 
orchard wall numbered about ten or twelve, and for 
the best part of the day they remained there, working 
their very hardest at the mortar between the stones, 
