248 
NATURE NOTES. 
Well, — face it and chase it, this vain regret : 
Which would I choose, — to see my moor 
With eyes such as many that I have met. 
Which see and are blind, which all wealth leaves poor. 
Or to sit, brick-prisoned, but free within, 
Freeborn by a charter no gold can win ? 
E. Hubbard. 
A REMARKABLE HOUSE-MARTIN’S NEST. 
S I was passing the station at Snainton, in north-east 
Yorkshire (on the branch line of the N.E.R., between 
Pickering and Scarborough), the station-master called 
my attention to a martin’s nest, which was of such 
unusual construction that I think an account of it may be of 
interest to readers of Nature Notes. 
On the platform in front of the station buildings is a glass- 
roofed verandah, and on the under side of this the nest was 
placed. 
The common position of the martin’s nest is well known — 
a mud structure cemented together in some remarkable manner 
by one of the trade secrets of bird architecture, and placed on 
the under side of the eaves of a building, or the corner-stone 
of a window, with the wall of the building for one of the walls 
of the nest. 
The bird-architect of Snainton, evidently of an original turn 
of mind, determined to build its nest without the usual assist- 
ance of a vertical wall, and successfully carried out its design, 
the nest of mud being suspended from the glass roof of the 
verandah, like an inverted “ skep ” of an old-fashioned beehive, 
with the usual small entrance-hole at the top of the mud just 
under the glass of the verandah. 
It would be interesting to know whether any bird-observing 
readers have ever noticed a similar case of a martin’s nest 
being so suspended, without the usual vertical wall assistance 
at one side. I should imagine it must be an exceedingly rare 
occurrence, for as far as my observation goes the house-martin 
in building invariably commences at the bottom of the nest, and 
works upwards to the top; and the construction of a pendent nest 
as above described must, under ordinary circumstances, involve 
the reversal of the usual principles of bird architecture. 
The birds in this case, however, were not absolutely without 
artificial assistance, although it was of a very meagre character. 
Under the verandah, at a space of about three inches below the 
glass, is a horizontal bell-wire, and on this slender foundation the 
birds commenced their building operations; the task proved no 
easy one, for as soon as a good solid lump of mud was accumu- 
