58 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Manners of the young and old. 



ceptible a flight, thai a person must attend very 

 exactly to the motions of the birds, before he is 

 5|ble to perceive it. 



As soon as the young are able to provide for 

 themselves, the dams repair their nests for a 

 second brood. The first flight then associate in 

 large flocks ; and may be seen on sunny morn- 

 ings and evenings, clustering and hovering 

 ground towers and steeples, and on the roofs of 

 churches and houses. These assemblies usually 

 begin to take place about the first week in Au- 

 gust. From observing the birds approaching 

 and playing about the eaves of buildings, many 

 persons have been led to suppose that more than 

 two old birds attend on each nest. 



The martins are often very capricious in fixing 

 on a nesting-place, beginning many edifices 

 and leaving them unfinished ; but (as before ob- 

 served) when a nest has been once completed in 

 a sheltered situation, it is made to serve for se- 

 veral seasons. In forming their nests these in* 

 dustrious creatures are at their labour, in the 

 long days, before four o'clock in the morning : 

 in fixing their materials, they plaster them on 

 with their chins, moving the head with a quick 

 vibratory motion. They breed the latest of 

 all our swallows, never being without unfledged 

 young even so late as Michaelmas. 



Sometimes in very hot weather they dip and 

 wash as they fly, but not so frequently as the 



