284 SWALLOW. 



sometimes against the sides of high cliffs, near the sea : the eggs are 

 three or four, or at most five, white, without any spots; the young 

 keep in the nest for a long time, till able to fly well, and after that, 

 the old ones feed them on the wing ; said to have two broods in a 

 year, and even a third if the others are destroyed, but the number of 

 eggs fewer in each hatch. 



This comes into England later than the Chimney Swallow,* and 

 generally departs the beginning of October. It seems to be dispersed 

 all over the Continent of Europe, as high as Drontheim, in Norway, 

 throughout Siberia, and in Kamtschatka, where it builds in high 

 banks; and extends south as far as the Cape of Good Hope at least. 

 Found also in Sumatra ; visits Gibraltar about the end of March, 

 departing the end of July, or beginning of August, although it stays 

 in England two months later. Martins do not seem to congregate, 

 before their departure, like the Swallow, and are observed to build 

 in one place yearly ; as they also do in numbers, against the perpen- 

 dicular walls of the North Pavilion of the South Barracks of 

 Gibraltar, very few making the nests in the town itself; though 

 generally breeding in the caverns and clefts of the rocks, and very 

 many in certain large cavities towards the north, where the sun 

 rarely shines upon them. 



" The Martin, which in England is supposed to bring good 

 " fortune to the house, under the eaves of which it builds its nest, is 

 " regarded as a bird of ill omen-jn Ferroe; it never builds here, and 

 " the Islanders dread its appearance, believing that either there will 

 " be a destructive sickness in the country, or that a corpse will soon 

 " be carried from the house over which it happens to fly."t Beseke 

 mentions one shot near him, which was wholly white. 



* Sometimes the difference of twenty days between, never earlier than 17th of April, 

 and often not till the beginning of May. 



f Landt's Description of the Feroe Islands. 



