. Wild life of orchard and field;. ticalexposures of soil suitable for them to penetratefor the burrows at the inner end of which the nestis placed. Firm sand, with no admixture of peb-bles, is preferred, and in such an exposure, be itsea-shore, river-bank, sand-pit, or railway cutting,the face will often be fairly honey-combed withburrows, so that we can readily believe that counted over seven hundred holes in one bluffin Alaska. These are usually very close together,and the wonder is how the birds can distinguishtheir own doors. If mistakes do occur, I imaginethey are all very polite
. Wild life of orchard and field;. ticalexposures of soil suitable for them to penetratefor the burrows at the inner end of which the nestis placed. Firm sand, with no admixture of peb-bles, is preferred, and in such an exposure, be itsea-shore, river-bank, sand-pit, or railway cutting,the face will often be fairly honey-combed withburrows, so that we can readily believe that counted over seven hundred holes in one bluffin Alaska. These are usually very close together,and the wonder is how the birds can distinguishtheir own doors. If mistakes do occur, I imaginethey are all very polite about it, for I know of nomore peaceable neighbors among birds than mode in which this perforation is performed,requiring an amount of labor rare with animals,is well described by Mr. Rennie in his Architect-ure of Birds: The beak is hard and sharp, and admirablyadapted for digging; it is small, we admit, but itsshortness adds to its strength, and the bird works. , , with its bill shut. This fact our readers may 282 f Co. WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD verify by observing their operations early in themorning through an opera-glass, when they beginin the spring to form their excavations. In thisway we have seen one of these birds cling with itssharp claws to the face of a sand-bank, and peg inits bill as a miner would his pickaxe, till it hadloosened a considerable portion of the hard sand,and tumbled it down among the rubbish these preliminary operations it never makes useof its claws for digging; indeed, it is impossiblethat it could, for they are indispensable in main-taining its position, at least when it is beginningits hole. We have further remarked that some ofthese martins holes are nearly as circular as ifthey had been planned out with a pair of compass-es, while others are more irregular in form; butthis seems to depend more on the sand crumblingaway than upon any deficiency in its originalworkmanship. The bird, in fact, always uses itsown body to de
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectanimalb, bookyear1902
