passes, while others are more irregular in form ; hut this
seems to depend more on the sand crumbling away than upon
any deficiency in the original workmanship. * The bird, in
fact, always uses'its own body to determine the proportions
of the gallery,—the part from the thigh to the head forming
the radius of .the circle. . I t does- not trace this out as we
should do, by fixing a point for. the. centre around which to
draw the circumference ; on the contrary, it-perches on the
circumference with its claws, and works with.its-bill-from the
centre outwards : and hence it is. that in .the numerous excavations
recently commenced, which wo have’ examined,-we
have uniformly found the ; termination ;funnel-shaped, the
centre being always, much more scooped‘but, than the circuuij
-ierence. The bird consequéntly assumes all positions, while'
at work in the interior, hanging from the -roof .jq5|:the gallery
with its bask downwards as ofteh aS "Standing bn the floor".
We have more than once, indeed-,- ' seen- a -Bank Martin
wheéling slowly round in this manner on the dace of a sandbank,
when it was just breaking ground to'begin its'gallefy."-
A 11 the galleries - arewfound to 1 be- ;jnore .’or ; less. : tortuous
to their termination, - -which,'. Is at the depth ~;of fromAwb
to three rfèet', where a bed ..of loose hay; and"a -fewoi!i$bb
smaller breast-feathers of geese, | ducks, or fowls,is., spread
with little art. for the reception" of the eggs/ It may mot- be
unimportant to remark, also, that' i t "always Scrapes? oût>with
its feet the sand detached byrthe bill ; but so, carefully-is
this performed that-it never scratches up the unmined sand,
or disturbs the "plane*'of the floor, which rather .slopes
upwards, and of course the lodgment of rain is thereby prevented.”
-
The eggs are from four to six in number ; white, like
those of the House Mahtin, ibut smaller, measuring only
eight ■ lines in length, by six lines in breadth. . The Sand
Martins are sociable birdà, building in company gdose, to
each' other; and in some favourable localitiès the external
apertures to their retreats, which are all that can be seen of
their-' domicile, arewvery numerous,r4—so much so, that the
surface mb the bank appears* perforated like a honeycomb,
44 The Nestlings,” says White* are < supported, in common
like those* of their! Congeners; with gnats, and other small
'iallotS'; and sometimes they are fed; with L/UBklhda .-(dragon
flies)’ almost as long as^ themselves*;* In the last week
in ’dupe-we - have .’‘seen a row^f^these ^sitting on a rail near
a*pool as perchers'f and so young and-helpless^»as- easily | p
I®'taken by hand» but whether the* dams eyeiifeed them on
thé -Wing,' asdSwallows -atfd House Martins dp;, we have,never
y-etebeemh#blc|^d'diétèTÉaide.f'|fe*-WlibUïiOn thetwing in search'
skim dowt^veTi’meadows and commons; they
alsh drink, sip,. sand*1 wash as;u'theykJ^,^*sonre,tiaiës; as the
H&le-<MSrtih andu the*-Swallow. The ybung* when^htey
est to -./make- room* "fot th ê ^ c b n d
brood?. %©b*st$ in numbers amo^gykhe ItljiorS which ■ grow; bn
the séall isl^plfe^itnd?' on the' bahks-off rivers-: *® T h e Sand
Mi» Bkckw^fr has» never-»been
v-u forsaking Mik pibgbUwff yet that it sometimes
|<fefesdabandon them I have clearly? ascertained, by repeated
inA'eebh^ï^o-f tlfcwwèpÊiS of that*-spedfcs?. during the winter
moNtlijpi h
■ -The .Sandi* Martin /fai^neralfy,’ but Meally/-distributed
bver t*hd>BritishilKMhdsf.'!i Mr: Belfast sayd
Am-is a regular^Numm er» -viflwer^to« Irblan d, but is.-noY so
numerous >as thqdS^JlloiWï,of the HousenMartim I t visits
also the * Orkneys and*?Shetland. '■ Maillet includes it .as a
bird of Denmark'. M; Nifesbii says ifemsithSweden, and
Mr. HewitSbnV'saw & irTl^orWay» It is found in summer
in -the liNbru temperate parts- of Russia and Siberia, and
fröm: thé-ncé o ver all th©®soafherh parts . ‘of the European
■continent, from'which -it* passes »towards the end of autumn