THE MARTlfr. 57 



Fabrication of its nest. 



Wards the top ; strong, compact, and warm, and 

 perfectly fitted for all the purposes for which it 

 was intended. "But nothing is more common 

 than for the house-sparrow, as soon as the shell 

 is finished, to seize on it, eject the owner, and 

 to line it according to its own peculiar manner. 

 After so much labour is bestowed in erecting a 

 inansion> as nature seldom works in vain, martins 

 will breed for several years successively in the 

 same nest, where it happens to be well sheltered 

 and secured from the injuries of the weather. 

 The shell or crust of the nest is a soil of rustic 

 work, formed of such dirt or loam as is most 

 readily met with, and tempered and wrought to- 

 gether with little pieces of broken straws to ren- 

 der it tough and tenacious ; it is full of knobs 

 and protuberances on the outsides ; nor is the 

 inside smoothed with any great exactness, but 

 is rendered soft and warm, and fit for incubation, 

 by a lining of small straws, grasses, and feathers, 

 and sometimes by a bed of moss interwoven with 

 wool. 



Herein the female produces four or five 

 young ; which, when arrived at full growth, be- 

 come impatient of confinement, and sit all day 

 with their heads out at the orifice, where the 

 dams, by clinging to the nest, supply them with 

 food from morning to night. After this they 

 are fed by the parents on the wing ; but this 

 feat is performed by so quick and almost imper* 



VOL. IV. NO. 25, H 



