this method of drinking perhaps this genus may be peculiar.

The sedge-bird sings most part of the night; its notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and imitative of several birds; as the sparrow, swallow, skylark. When it happens to be silent in the night, by throwing a stone or clod into the bushes where it sits you immediately set it a singing; or in other words, though it slumbers sometimes, yet as soon as it is awakened it reassumes its song.

SELBORNE, Nov. 9, 1773.

*

IN obedience to your injunctions I sit down to give you some account of the house-martin, or martlet; and, if my monography of this little domestic and familiar bird should happen to meet with your approbation, I may probably soon extend my inquiries to the rest of the British hirundines-the swallow, the swift, and the bank-martin.

A few house-martins begin to appear about the sixteenth of April; usually some few days later than the swallow. For some time after they appear, the hirundines in general pay no attention to the business of nidification, but play and sport about, either to recruit from the fatigue of their journey, if they do migrate at all, or else that their blood may recover its true tone and texture after it has been so long benumbed by the severities of winter. About the middle of May, if the weather be fine, the martin begins to think in earnest of providing a mansion for its family. The crust or shell of this nest seems to be formed of such dirt or loam as comes most

* Hirundo urbica, Linnæus.

readily to hand, and is tempered and wrought together with little bits of broken straws to render it tough and tenacious. As this bird often builds against a perpendicular wall without any projecting ledge under, it requires its utmost efforts to get the first foundation firmly fixed, so that it may safely carry the superstructure. On this occasion the bird not only clings with its claws, but partly supports itself by strongly inclining its tail against the wall, making that a fulcrum; and thus steadied, it works and plasters the materials into the face of the brick or stone. But then that this work may not, while it is soft and green, pull itself down by its own weight, the provident architect has prudence and forbearance enough not to advance her work too fast; but by building only in the morning, and by dedicating the rest of the day to food and amusement, gives it sufficient time to dry and harden. About half an inch seems to be a sufficient layer for a day. Thus careful workmen when they build mud-walls (informed at first perhaps by this little bird) raise but a moderate layer at a time, and then desist; lest the work should become top-heavy, and so be ruined by its own weight. By this method in about ten or twelve days is formed an hemispheric nest with a small aperture towards the top, strong, compact, and warm; and perfectly fitted for all the purposes for which it was intended. But then nothing is more common than for the house-sparrow, as soon as the shell is finished, to seize on it as its own, to eject the owner, and to line it after its own

manner.

• The Martins are very particular about the clay used in this all-important operation, and will stop the works if it is found not to be sufficiently tenacious to support itself.-ED.

After so much labour is bestowed in erecting a mansion, as Nature seldom works in vain, martins will breed on for several years together in the same nest, where it happens to be well sheltered and secure from the injuries of weather.* The shell or crust of the nest is a sort of rustic-work full of

* Mr. Hepburn, an accurate and minute observer, has noted the building of three nests in detail:-"On the 3rd of June six martins, H. urbica, arrived at Linton and spent the whole day in examining the eaves of the house and stables. Next morning they commenced a foundation for three nests, each pair worked at a particular part, and by noon it presented a continuous line of mud. By the 13th two pairs had left off, their nests being half finished. The remaining pair brought their labours to a close on the 17th." Following Mr. Hepburn's journal, in which he records the proceedings of another pair,-"The first day they began work at day-break, and worked till five, p. m.; second day they work from twelve and disappear at three; third day they work very little, more play than work; fourth day not seen at all; fifth day they build briskly till nine, when much rain and wind drove them away; sixth day cold and cloudy, one pair only at work; seventh day cold and frosty, no building till it thawednest half finished, but the walls and corners are nicely rounded off, giving security to the whole fabric. They finish off the top; they sometimes cling to the outside, using the tail and wings as a fulcrum; eighth day martins work very constantly; ninth day no work; tenth day they build till noon, but with little progress; eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth days built a little; fourteenth to the seventeenth inactive; on the eighteenth they appeared about noon, worked some time, and remained all night. On the 19th of May they finished the nest. But their labours were not ended. On the 23rd of June, during a heavy and continued rain, the nest fell to the ground with the young birds it contained. A little before the catastrophe the old birds were hovering about exhibiting great anxiety and left the place immediately. They returned the following day and spent it in surveying the window. Next morning they commenced repairing the nest, and on the 1st of July they had again completed their labour. When finished, the outer shell of the nest is of solid clay, in pellats, held together by straws; inside is a layer of decayed matter, lined with a warm thick layer of wool, then one of hairs of horses, and scraps of linen, tape, and feathers, chiefly of the domestic fowl."-ED.

P

knobs and protuberances on the outside: nor is the inside of those that I have examined smoothed with any exactness at all; but is rendered soft and warm, and fit for incubation by a lining of small straws, grasses, and feathers; and sometimes by a bed of moss interwoven with wool. In this nest they tread, or engender, frequently during the time of building; and the hen lays from three to five white eggs.

At first when the young are hatched, and are in a naked and helpless condition, the parent birds, with tender assiduity, carry out what comes away from their young. Was it not for this affectionate cleanliness the nestlings would soon be burnt up, and destroyed in so deep and hollow a nest, by their own caustic excrement.* In the quadruped creation the same neat precaution is made use of; particularly among dogs and cats, where the dams lick away what proceeds from their young. But in birds the re seems to be a particular provision, that the dung of nestlings is enveloped in a tough kind of jelly, and therefore is the easier conveyed off without soiling or daubing. Yet, as Nature is cleanly in all her ways, the young perform this office for themselves in a little time by thrusting their tails out at the aperture of their nest. As the young of small birds presently arrive at their λnía, or full growth, they soon become impatient of confinement, and sit all day with their heads out of the orifice, where the dams, by clinging to the next, supply them with food from morning to night. For a time the young are fed on the wing by their parents; but the feat is

The excrement of young birds is covered with a thin membrane which permits the old bird to remove it in its bill: a provision for cleanliness not the least among the proofs all Nature presents of Divine Wisdom.-ED.