390 
HIRUNDINID.E. 
in the north of Ireland of late years, does not present such favour- 
able sites for the nests of the martin, as that of an older date. 
Not only the “buttress and coign of vantage” are wanting, but 
the less feudal, though to the martin equally useful appendage,— 
the antiquated holdfast of the wooden spout, is now disused. Upon 
this the mud fabric was wont to be raised, ample room being 
afforded for the nest between its base and the spout which it sup- 
ported. When in Ballymena, in July, 1833, I observed the pre- 
dilection of the martin for the older houses to be so strongly 
marked, that against those in the more ancient part of the town, 
their nests were numerous, while not one was to be seen 
about any of the modern erections. With reference to this pro- 
pensity, an instance may be mentioned, which suggests another 
cause, that influences the choice of site ; — namely, the martin’s 
being prone to return to its birth-place.* During a week’s stay 
in the summer of 1833, at the picturesque sea-bathing village of 
Portstewart (co. Londonderry), which had been lately built, not 
one of these martins appeared, though the place was in many re- 
spects peculiarly suited to them. Although their abode was not 
taken up there, yet in the high and time-worn precipices which 
rise above the ocean at only a short distance to the eastward of 
the village, these birds were always to be seen. Particularly 
graceful they appeared, when gliding to and from their nests, 
placed beneath the summit of the stupendous basaltic arch that 
pierces the isolated mass of rock on which the ruins of a castle 
are situated. 
This Hirundo is so partial to the noble basaltic precipices— 
rising directly above, or contiguous to the sea — which form the 
leading features of the north-east coast of Ireland, that it is 
always to be seen about them during the more genial seasons of 
* Mr. Jesse, in the second series of his Gleanings in Natural History, gives the 
following extract from the unpublished journal of White of Selborne: — “July 6, 
] 783. Some young martins came out of the nest over the garden door. This nest 
was built in 1777, and has been used ever since.” A nest built against a spout-head 
in York-street, Belfast, was occupied for four years successively. It has been proved 
by Capt. King, R.N., and Mr. Weir, that the same birds return annually to the same 
locality. — See Macgillivray’s British Birds, vol. iii. p. 592. 
