SAND MARTINS^. 
275 
a time on the bare ground. The eggs were oblong, dusky, and 
streaked somewhat in the manner of the plumage of the parent 
bird, and were equal in size at each end. The dam was sitting 
on the eggs when found, which contained the rudiments of young, 
and would have been hatched perhaps in a week. From hence 
we may see the time of their breeding, which corresponds pretty 
well with that of the swift, as does also the period of their arrival. 
Each species is usually seen about the beginning of May. Each 
breeds but once in a summer ; each lays only two eggs.* 
July 4, 1790. The woman who brought me two fern-owl's 
eggs last year on July 14, on this day produced me two more, 
one of which had been laid this morning, as appears plainly, 
because there was only one in the nest the evening before. They 
were found, as last July, on the verge of the down above the 
hermitage under a beechen shrub, on the naked ground. Last 
year those eggs were full of young, and just ready to be hatched. 
These circumstances point out the exact time when these 
curious nocturnal migratory birds lay their eggs and hatch their 
young. Fern-owls, like snipes, stone curlews, and some other 
Ijirds, make no nest. Birds that build on the ground do not 
make much of nests. f 
SAND MARTINS. 
March 23, 1788. A gentleman, who was this week on a visit 
at Waverly, took the opportunity of examining some of the holes 
in the sand-banks with which that district abounds. As these 
are undoubtedly bored by bank martins, and are the places where 
they avowedly breed, he was in hopes they might have slept there 
also, and that he might have surprised them just as they were 
awaking from their winter slumbers. When he had dug for 
* The swift often lays three, and sometimes four eggs. — Ed 
t No author that 1 am acquainted with has given so accurate and pleasing an account of the 
manners and habits of the goat-sucker as Mr. White, taken entirely from his own observatiotis, 
[ts being a nocturnal bird, has prevented my having many opportunities of observing it. I suspect 
that it passes the day in concealment amidst the dark and shady gloom of deep-wooded dells, or 
as they are called here gills, having more than once se^-n it roused from siich solitary places by 
my dogs, when shooting in the day-time. I have also sometimes seen it in an evening, but not 
long enough to take notice of its habits and manners. I have never seen it but in the summer, 
between the months of May and September. — Markwick.* 
* This bird I have many times noticed during the day-time, sitting on lichened fences, nearly 
of its own colour, and even hedges, but generally in shady situations. It will allow of a close 
approach, and more than once 1 have advanced so near that I could have easily knocked it down 
with a stick, before I could convince myself that it was not a mere lump of mouldiness ; when 
disturbed, it flits away, with an easy buoyant flight, to the shelter generally of some contiguous 
fern-covert. — Ed. 
