NOTES AND QUERIES. 181 



containing a full clutch of eggs, which had been begun on a short 

 length of quarter-inch iron bar, casually pushed under the wall-plate, 

 so that the free end just touched one of the beams, at an angle of about 

 forty degrees. This bar could be removed and replaced without in any 

 way interfering with the stability of the nest. In Cornwall, owing to 

 the abundance of natural situations, many of our birds are not so 

 advanced in their dealings with mankind as in other parts of England, 

 and I should say in this district the greater number of Swallows still 

 keep to the caves around the coasts for their breeding stations. I know 

 several caves, whether sea-caves into which the tide flows, or mine 

 adits emptying out on the cliffs, where many pairs breed every year, and 

 the nests are mostly of the continental type, though varying in shape 

 according to the situation. I have not yet found the flat saucer-shaped 

 nest, typical in the up-country barn. House-Martins' (Chelidon urbica) 

 nests cover the face of the sea-cliffs in places, e.g. at Cadgwith, and 

 even the ever-present Passer domesticus will sometimes prefer holes in 

 a cliff near a village to the actual dwellings of man. — H. Holroyd 

 Mills. 



Abnormal Nests of the Swallow. — With regard to Mr. S. G. Cum- 

 mings's article (ante, p. 121), a pair of Swallows (Hirundo rustica) built 

 a nest in a sort of outhouse here two or three years ago, which was 

 without any support beneath it. The nest has now fallen down, but a 

 brood was hatched, and the mark of it can still be seen. It was placed 

 against a very smooth brick wall just under the whitewashed ceiling, 

 and was very like a House-Martin's [Chelidon urbica), except that it had 

 more roots and straws with the mud. Several years before a similar 

 unsupported nest was built by Swallows, which was fixed against the 

 beams in a shed in a paddock here, and which exactly resembled the 

 nest in fig. 2. I am inclined to think that these nests, without a ledge 

 to rest on, are a good deal commoner than is supposed. — Harold 

 Russell (The Ridgeway, Shere, Surrey). 



Nesting Habits of the Swallow. — In the fen-country between 

 Peterborough and Wisbech nests of the common Swallow are not in- 

 frequently built under the bridges which carry roads across the drains, 

 or "dikes," as they are called locally. These nests are built against 

 the smooth brickwork of the bridge, and are necessarily without sup- 

 port of any kind from below. Two occupied nests which I saw under 

 one bridge in Whaplode Drove, in June, 1885, were only a few inches 

 above the water-line ; the span of the arch at water-level was three 

 feet, and the keystone barely two feet from the water. In 1898 I 

 noticed two Swallows' nests on the rocks in the large artificial cave 



