Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/191

Rh spring. By means of some agency in the bird-world, corresponding, I suppose, to our daily press, they would hear of lovely nesting weather in Derbyshire; and to me March's promise brought but regrets in May. Even when insectivorous birds were few and far between, nature's providence forbade the laying of a full clutch, clearly evidencing the sparseness of the food-supply. Near Clifton I have often found six Hedge-Sparrows' nests containing the full clutch within the bounds of a single field, without regard to Chiffchaffs and Whitethroats catering for hungry families on very similar lines.

My favourite authorities would further inform me that the Sand-Martin is accustomed to lay from four to six eggs in its solitary clutch year by year. My notes of expeditions in the south and west confirm this rule, giving five as the common number, and four as the minimum. There rises before my vision a northern colony of this river-haunting bird. I see a miniature amphitheatre of oozing clay, its lofty sides dotted with Irishmen wielding spades and encroaching yet farther on the plateau-like meadow-land above; where we expect the arena is a loathsome clay-pool, slimy brown and forbidding, destitute of reed or flag. One side of the encircling banks has ended abruptly in a sandwall, and here the Martins have found a home. The birds are flitting over the clay-pool, actually struggling for each rising fly. The meadows they will resort to towards sunset. The land is too poor to breed the humble fly; there are on it only the tiny moths which sleep by day among the blades and grass roots. On Aug. 10th, 1896, I examined seventeen nests in such a place as this, and no nest contained more than three eggs or young.

If we transport ourselves to some shelving sand-bank on some southern stream, we see the Martins flitting about careless of each other's prey. A warmer temperature and the vegetation plenteous in the stream-bed render insect-food abundant, and every tunnel in the wall's face will give to light five or six young Martins before September comes.

It is a great help in bird study to acquaint oneself with gamekeepers. One vacation I was trespassing, countenanced by the head keeper, and I found two Sparrow-hawks' nests in woods three or four miles apart. Each contained the magnificent clutch of seven eggs, forming a picture none the less delightful