File:Birds and their nests and eggs - found in and near great towns (1907) (14775398723).jpg

Identifier: birdstheirnestse00vosg (find matches)
Title: Birds and their nests and eggs : found in and near great towns
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Vos, George Herklots
Subjects: Birds Birds Birds
Publisher: London : G. Routledge New York : E.P. Dutton.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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with my nose almost flattened againstthe window, was quite undetected. Thenest was not more than three feet from myeyes. The busy pair flew continually downon to the road, returning each time with apellet of wet mud. It is alleged that thesepellets are made adhesive by the birdssaHva. Bit after bit was stuck on carefully;the nest gradually assumed a half-cup shape,and was finally completed right up to thegutter, except the narrow rim for entrance.I once noticed house-martins choose a newly-painted wall beneath a gutter for the site oftheir nest. The paint was sticky, beingscarcely dry when they began, and this theyprobably found out. But their nests havesometimes been built even against a pane ofglass. I have been told that sparrows willattempt to domicile themselves in a house- EARLY JUNE—OUR LAST EXCURSION 147 martins nest, when the birds will assemblein great numbers, each bringing a bit of mud,and speedily close the entrance up and thusmake the sparrow captive, when he dies, of
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Plate XLIII : Swallow (i size). course, of starvation. On the other hand, ahouse-martin has been known to build a newnest against its old one of the previous year,which it found in the possession of an impu-dent sparrow, I read the other day of a man 148 AMONGST THE WOODLAND BIRDS— being considerably frightened by swallows ;they were really, I suspect, house-martins.He began to pull down some nests with theaid of a ladder, when he was attacked byhundreds of these birds, which collected asif by magic. Each, as it passed and re-passed, tried to peck his face. The swift builds in holes in high buildings,in crevices of cliffs, or under thatched roofs, thebirds sometimes squeezing through very nar-row chinks to get at their nests, which may beonly a collection of dirt and debris scratchedtogether; at other times the birds willutilize what is left of some other birds nest. The swallow chooses a rafter under shelter,or some platform (e.g. corner in a chimney),on which it builds a saucer-sh

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