THE SAND-MARTIN'S ABODE. 
441 
rock. Not that he purposedly and by preference undertakes a task 
so laborious. When he can find a more convenient locality, a locality 
where the sandy soil is loose, friable, and yet tolerably tenacious, he 
gladly takes advantage of it. Otherwise he attacks the hard sand- 
stone with really wonderful courage. Having fixed on what appears 
to be a practicable spot, he proceeds to use his legs as a kind of pivot, 
and wheeling round and round works away with his beak as if it 
were an auger, until he has effected an almost cylindrical hole. The 
tunnel thus made slopes upward, to prevent the rain from lodging, and 
is frequently three feet in length. At the end of the recess is deposited 
a pile of dry grass and soft feathers, on which the female lays her eggs, 
and hatches them. 
The sand-martin is a sociable bird; and a sandstone bank or cliff 
will sometimes be found quite honeycombed with holes. Less than 
five couples are seldom met with ; generally the colony consists of 
twenty to forty, and sometimes of no fewer than one hundred. 
It is certainly a remarkable thing that a bird so small and com- 
paratively so feeble as the sand-martin should be capable of executing 
a work so gigantic, in so short a time. We say "gigantic;" and the 
epithet is not inappropriate, when we consider the size of the worker, 
and that the work is the result of the labour of only two individuals. 
In a couple of days a sand-martin and his mate will bore a cavity of 
two to three inches diameter at the mouth, wider still at the bottom, 
and three to six feet in length. While thus engaged, their activity is 
prodigious. They may be seen painfully collecting with their claws 
the sand which they have thrown aside, and removing it from their 
habitation. Not unfrequently they will abandon the work tliey have 
commenced; or having finished it, will begin it again in another 
quarter. It is not easy to explain these vagaries. During their labour 
they are so completely absorbed in its anxieties that they take no 
rest or pleasure ; and one might suppose that they had deserted the 
countryside. But strike upon the ground with your stick, and im- 
mediately a rush of wings will be heard from every tunnel. 
Wilson says : — The sand-martin (or bank swallow, as he is also 
called) appears to be the most sociable with his kind, and the least 
