Birds. 2605 



their departure, swallows are very fond of collecting together on the 

 pebbly margin of the Trent, — perhaps from its resemblance to the sea 

 coast, their starting-point for emigration. It is very amusing to watch 

 them on these occasions spreading out their wings and preening them, 

 as if preparing for their voyage. 



Martin (Hirundo urbica). After martins have made their appear- 

 ance here in spring, they sometimes again disappear for weeks, and 

 again show themselves and then remain through the summer. In 

 1844 I find that these birds were visible on April 23rd and 24th, and 

 from that period not one was observable until May 14th, when a single 

 individual arrived. Are our first visitants only voyagers to some more 

 northern locality, and just seen on their passage ? or are they birds 

 which — having once appeared, and not finding our climate sufficiently 

 mild — again retrace their passage to a summer clime ? Martins haunt 

 the Trent on their first arrival, and in a fortnight or three weeks com- 

 mence building their first nest, which occurs about May 25th. The 

 young leave the nest about August 2nd. Second nest is begun August 

 11th. Second brood quit the nest September 29th. In the year 1846 

 a pair of house martins built their nest beneath one of the windows of 

 our house, and had just made it ready for the reception of eggs, when 

 two sparrows took possession of it, and defied all the efforts of the 

 rightful owners to force them out. During the absence of the spar- 

 rows one day the swallows blocked up the entrance, and finally built 

 another nest over it, and so excluded the usurpers. In 1836 I was an 

 eye-witness to an interesting circumstance, which illustrated the natu- 

 ral affection of this bird. During the third week in October a pair of 

 martins built a nest underneath the battlements of one of the public 

 buildings in Derby, in a warm and sheltered situation. At the end of 

 the month the main body of martins departed, leaving this pair behind, 

 which continued in the neighbourhood until the extraordinary late 

 period of November 27th, when the young, being fledged, left the 

 nest, and they and their parents disappeared together : this appeared 

 to me extraordinary, as I have known more than one instance in which 

 the old birds have forsaken their offspring to obey the migratory im- 

 pulse : sometimes, if a nest is examined immediately after the departure 

 of a pair of birds in the autumn, the young will be found half fledged, 

 and evidently having died from starvation, occasioned by the parents 

 abandoning them. 



Sand Martin (Hirundo riparia). A colony of these birds takes up 

 its residence annually on a picturesque bank called Weston Cliff, 

 overlooking the Trent, and beautiful is the sight to see hundreds of 



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