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STRANGE DWELLINGS . 
CHAPTER II. 
BURROWING BIRDS . 
The Sand Martin — Mode of burrowing and shape of the tunnel — Enemies 
of the Sand Martin — Midges and Martins — The Kingfisher and its 
habits — Its burrow and peculiar nest — Number of the eggs — The Puffin a | 
feathered usurper — The Feroe Islands and the Puffins — Pro aris et focis— 
The Jackdaw, Stockdove, and Sheldrake — Nest of the Sheldrake— 
The Stormy Petrel — Its mode of nesting and shallow tunnels — mode of 
feeding its young — Evil odour of its burrow — The Woodpecker — Its uses 
and misunderstood character — Method of burrowing — The Fungus and the 
Woodpecker. 
We now take leave of . the furred burrowers, and proceed to 
those which wear feathers instead of hair. 
One of the best examples of Bird Burrowers is the well- 
known Sand Martin ( Cotile riparict ), so plentiful in this 
country. The powers of this pretty little bird seem to be 
quite inadequate to the arduous labours which it performs so 
easily, and few would suppose, after contemplating its tiny bill, 
that it was capable of boring tunnels into tolerably hard sand- 
stone. Such, however, is the case, for the Sand Martin is 
familiarly known to drive its tunnels into sandstone that is hard 
enough to destroy all the edge of a knife. 
The bird does not prefer a laborious to an easy task, and if 
it can find a spot where the soil is quite loose, and yet where 
the sides of the burrow will not collapse, it will always take 
advantage of such a locality. I have frequently seen such 
instances of judgment, where the birds had selected the sandy 
intervals between strata of stone, and so saved themselves 
from any trouble except scraping and throwing out the loose 
sand. 
When, however, the Sand Martin is unable to find such a 
situation, it sets to work in a very systematic fashion, trying 
