The House Martin is smaller than the Chimney Swallow and is easily distinguished from it. At the first glance we are struck by the two colours of its plumage, black and white. Throat, breast, underparts, and also the rump are white; beak, neck, mantle, wings, and tail, black. The little legs are covered in front with white down, like little trousers. The throat is less white than that of the Swallow. Its nest is half-globular, built of clay, and has only a very narrow opening. It builds under eaves, or cornices, in sheltered places on houses and churches, in whole colonies, sometimes in groups, also one over another like a bunch of grapes. It lays five, sometimes seven white eggs.
The Swallow’s Flight.
The Sand Martin.
(Cotile riparia.)
The Sand Martin flies quickly, but not with the arrow-like speed of the Chimney Swallow. It dwells on the waterside, where it nests in colonies of hundreds, even thousands. The nest is composed almost exclusively of earth, and is placed in the steep high bank or in the walls of a landslip, and it is remarkable as to its architecture. The little bird excavates a long horizontal tunnel in the side of the bank, at the end of which is an oven-like cave, in which it builds its nest of vegetable fibre, roots, feathers and hair. The neighbours build so close together that the bank in many places appears to be completely honeycombed. These nests are built at least 12 inches from the surface of the bank. This bird visits the neighbouring streams and ponds in flocks, circling and darting here and there as is necessary in the pursuit of the winged water-insects. On its return in the spring it seeks and enlarges its old nest hole. It is widely distributed and occurs in great numbers.
. . . . . . . . . . .