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their motions before he would be able to perceive it. As 

 soon as the young are able to shift for themselves, the 

 dams immediately turn their thoughts to the business of 

 a second brood : while the first flight, shaken off and 

 rejected by their nurses, congregate in great flocks, and 

 are the birds that are seen clustering and hovering on 

 sunny mornings and evenings round towers and steeples, 

 and on the roofs of churches and houses. These con- 

 gregatings usually begin to take place about the first 

 week in August ; and therefore we may conclude that 

 by that time the first flight is pretty well over. The 

 young of this species do not quit their abodes all 

 together ; but the more forward birds get abroad some 

 days before the rest. These approaching the eaves of 

 buildings, and playing about before them, make people 

 think that several old ones attend one nest. They are 

 often capricious in fixing on a nesting place, beginning 

 many edifices, and leaving them unfinished ; but when 

 once a nest is completed in a sheltered place, it serves 

 for several seasons. Those which breed in a ready 

 finished house get the start in hatching of those that 

 build new by ten days or a fortnight. These industrious 

 artificers are at their labours in the long days before four 

 in the morning : when they fix their materials they 

 plaster them on with their chins, moving their heads with 

 a quick vibratory motion. They dip and wash as they 

 fly sometimes in very hot weather, but not so frequently 

 as swallows. It has been observed that martins usually 

 build to a north-east or north-west aspect, that the heat 

 of the sun may not crack and destroy their nests : but 

 instances are also remembered where they bred for many 

 years in vast abundance in an hot stifled inn-yard, against 

 a wall facing to the south. 



Birds in general are wise in their choice of situation : 

 but in this neighbourhood every summer is seen a strong 



