. British birds & their eggs : with a new method of identification . l, a shrill scream. HOUSE-MARTIN.—Plate 68. Length, 5| , nape, and upper back blue-black; wings andtail dull black; lower back and under parts migrant. Eggs.—4-5, elongated, pure white ; 79 x -52 inch(plate 126).- Nest.—A mud shell with opening at the top, linedwith straw and feathers, and placed under bridgesand the eaves of houses and barns, or beneath somerocky projection on cliifs. Distribution.—General. The House-Martin is the bird that affixes the mudshell of its nest beneath the eaves of country
. British birds & their eggs : with a new method of identification . l, a shrill scream. HOUSE-MARTIN.—Plate 68. Length, 5| , nape, and upper back blue-black; wings andtail dull black; lower back and under parts migrant. Eggs.—4-5, elongated, pure white ; 79 x -52 inch(plate 126).- Nest.—A mud shell with opening at the top, linedwith straw and feathers, and placed under bridgesand the eaves of houses and barns, or beneath somerocky projection on cliifs. Distribution.—General. The House-Martin is the bird that affixes the mudshell of its nest beneath the eaves of country housesand barns, sometimes alone, sometimes in lines offifty or sixty nests. It may be found nesting also onthe face of rock-clifFs, its original habitat. Like theSwallow, the Martin is nearly always on the wing,roving up, down, and about, capturing its food whileflying, and emitting from time to time a high-pitched Pri! quite unlike the notes of other birds of theSwallow kind. When on the wing, it may be distju Plate 58. -.\ .„L HOUSE-MARTIN. Plate SWALLOW. R SWALLOW AND SWALLOW-LIKE BIRDS. 131 guished easily from any of its family by the conspicwoiiswhite tract on the lower hack; and when perching, itmay be as readily detected by the absence of any breast-band, the under parts being uniformly white. In thelate summer the birds congregate with Swallows andSand-Martins, often in the neighbourhood of streamsand open waters, and, sleeping at night in largecompanies in reed-beds, remain together until inSeptember they swarm for migration. Arrivingin England towards the end of March, the House-Martin, save for stragglers, usually retires by themiddle of October. SWALLOW—7i inches ; lacks the white lower back of theHouse-Martin; has coloured throat and hlack breast-band ; tail more deeply forked. Call, Wheet! wheet J SAND-MABTIN—5 inches; above wholly brown ; belowwhite, except brown breast-band. Call, a gutturalsound. SWIFT—7 inches; dead black all over, excep
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Keywords: ., bookauthorbora, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbirds
