
THE SAND MARTIN. 117 
of another already excavated, he leaves it and begins a new 
one in some other place. After having completed their 
burrow they deposit at its farther extremity a small quan- 
tity of soft dried grass, so adjusted that the largest part of 
the material is placed towards the passage-way, and then 
line it with a few large white downy feathers. I say white 
feathers, because I have always observed they prefer the 
whitest they can get for the purpose ; it shows a proper taste 
in the birds, a fit symbol of their innocence, and I shou 
be surprised to find a swallow’s nest of this species lined 
with black or even dark-colored feathers. In the nest thus 
formed the female deposits from four to six eggs, which are 
pure white, with a very thin transparent shell; they are 
six-eighths of an inch in length, and one-half of an inch in 
breadth. Nature has not bestowed on this bird that graceful 
motion when on the wing that the Barn Swallow exhibits, 
but she has given it the most amiable disposition of all our 
swallows. 
I have noticed an instance of the sense and reflection of 
these birds, for if reason did not influence them in their oper- 
ations, it seems as if there never was evidence of its exist- 
ence in animals. There is in the town of Beverly a bank, 
formed by the removal of clay for the purpose of making 
bricks, which is every season occupied by twenty or thirty 
pairs of these birds. Above the clay there is a stratum of 
sandy loam, from two to three feet in depth; in this they 
burrow from two to three feet. There is likewise in the 
town of Danvers a bank which swallows occupy, in which 
the layer of loam is mixed with gravel or small stones. 
They excavate this bank to the length of five, seven and even 
nine feet. For two or three seasons it was undermined. 
Why should there be such a difference in the length of the 
burrows made by the same species of birds, in situations not 
more than a mile distant from each other? In one bank, 
after examining a number of their holes where the earth was 
of a fine sandy loam, easily perforated, it was noticed that 
