OF SELBORNE. 
149 
and rejected by tlieir nurses, congregate in great flocks, and are 
the birds that are seen chistering and hovering on sunny morn- 
ings and evenings round towers and steeples, and on the roofs 
of churches and houses. These congregatings usually begin to 
take place about the first week in August; and therefore we 
may conclude that by that time the first flight is pretty well 
over. The young of this species do not quit their abodes all 
together ; but the more forward birds get abroad some days 
before the rest. These approaching the eaves of buildings, and 
playing about before them, make people think that several old 
ones attend one nest. They are often capricious in fixing on 
a nesting-place, beginning many edifices, and leaving them 
unfinished ; but when once a nest is completed in a sheltered 
place, it serves for several seasons. Those which breed in a 
ready-finished house get the start in hatching of those that build 
new by ten days or a fortnight. These industrious artificers 
are at their labours in the long days before four in the morning : 
when they fix their materials they plaster them on with their 
chins, moving their heads with a quick vibratory motion. They 
dip and wash as they fly sometimes in very hot weather, but 
not so frequently as swallows. It has been observed that 
martins usually build to a north-east or north-west aspect, 
that the heat of the sun may not crack and destroy their nests ; 
but instances are also remembered where they bred for many 
years in vast abundance in a hot stifled inn-yard, against a wall 
facing to the south. 
Birds in general are w^ise in their choice of situation ; but in 
this neighbourhood every summer is seen a strong proof to the 
contrary at a house without eaves in an exp)Osed district, where 
some martins build year by year in the corners of the windows. 
But as the corners of these windows (whicli face to the south- 
HOr,Si:-MAKTIN's y.GG. 
