Page:BirdWatchingSelous.djvu/365

Rh the commencement, so thoroughly as I should have liked to have done, yet I have seen it to a certain extent, and I will now quote from the notes which I took down on one such occasion:

"May 25th.—At the pit about 7.15 A great number of birds are working, and there is not now the same regularity in their movements—all coming to the holes and darting away together at intervals—as was the case, for a time, at least, when I first watched them. Though so late, several birds are but just commencing to make their holes, and to watch these is most interesting. Two plans seem to be employed. In the first, the bird constantly flutters its wings, whilst, with its feet, it at the same time clings to and scratches the face of the cliff. Thus it partly hovers in the air, and partly keeps itself in position with its feet, but more with the tail which is fanned out and pressed in against the cliff, like a woodpecker's against the trunk of the tree it is on. The second way is more curious. The wings, here, are partly extended, but, instead of being fluttered, they are pressed close against the sandy wall. Moving about over this, they seem to feel for every little inequality into which they can wedge themselves, and this the bird does, also, with his breast and the most available part of his body, the tail being fanned and pressed to the cliff, whilst the feet all the while are scratching vigorously. In this way a bird will sometimes crawl, or rather wedge itself, about, over the pit's face (which, though it may be perpendicular, or almost so, is yet full of roughnesses and inequalities), appearing to seek either the most yielding surface to scratch, or the best place to get fixed into whilst