THE HOUSE-MARTIN. 
391 
the year. Clustering in numbers against these gloomy cliffs, its 
“ pendent bed " may be observed in many places throughout the 
range ; among others, at the Gobbins, where some hundreds 
annually breed. About the Giant's Causeway, their admirably 
buoyant flight has particularly attracted me, as they skimmed the 
varied surface of the shelving banks and rugged rocks, keeping 
with an easy grace the same distance from the ground, not- 
withstanding the extreme inequality of surface. The house-mar- 
tin “ is the most numerous of the genus in Eathlin, where it is 
found in all parts of the island, as well inland as along the cliffs 
which overhang the sea." It builds in “ the range of white cliffs 
running along the north-western side of Church bay."* I observed 
considerable numbers of their nests in May, 1842, built in a 
similar manner, against the high and white limestone precipices 
of the Little Deer Park, Glenarm (county of Antrim). So many 
as twenty of them were in some places in juxtaposition. They 
almost overhang one side of the new line of road lately formed at 
the base of the cliffs, previously washed by the sea.f 
About the sea-girt rocks of the peninsula of the Horn, in Done- 
gal; those near to Ardmore in the county of Waterford; at the 
island of Lambay off the Dublin coast ; and other similar locali- 
ties, I have remarked the presence of the martin. It is said 
by Capt. Cook, J to breed in vast numbers among the rocks of the 
Alps and Pyrenees, often far from the habitation of man. 
Martins occasionally build under the arches of bridges. At 
Toome bridge, where the river Bann leaves Lough Neagh, I saw 
many of their nests in 1834, and was told that for a long period 
it had been a favourite haunt. In 1846, the following notes were 
made during a stay of three days at Toome: — August the 1st. 
* Dr. J. D. Marshall, in the same memoir, mentions, that one of these birds 
which he shot, “ had its mouth completely filled with insects, among which were a 
large dragon-fly, and one of the Tipulce oleracea ] .” White of Selborne has re- 
marked, that swifts and sand-martins feed on Libellulce. 
f In rocks of a similar kind, though in a very different scene,— the chalk-cliffs, 
which rise above the river Derwent, near Cromford, Derbyshire, — I observed many 
nests of the martin, in June, 1835. They were built as far in as possible beneath 
the overhanging rocks, in the same manner as under a projecting roof. 
j; Sketches in Spain, vol. ii. p. 275. 
