SWALLOWS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR.—I wonder whether your readers generally who live in the country have this year observed a great diminution in the number of house-martins ? Here I do not see a third of the usual numbers, nor did I see any until late in June. Possibly the very prolonged cold of the spring has something to do with this. I have noticed everywhere that I have been of late years how very much these beautiful little birds are troubled by the house-sparrow. No sooner is a nest built than it is appropriated by that impudent bird, who seems to delight in interfering all round, for in May when a splendid pair of grey woodpeckers bored a hole into a horse-chestnut tree close by my front door, no sooner had they finished than the sparrow's perky head appeared at the entrance ! We usually have two or three pairs of house-martins building on this house. Last year no nest was begun until July 14th or 15th ; this year we saw nothing of them until August 11th, when they commenced to build. There is a curious point connected with the proceedings of a pair of barn swallows who build in our church porch every year. They nest twice, and rear on an average eight birds, never using the same nest twice in the same year. If the nest is pulled down after the first brood has flown they will build in the same spot; if not they use another corner. But what becomes of the four pairs besides the parent birds ? We never have had in the nine years I have been here more than one pair occupying the porch, nor have I ever seen more than one pair trying to build. Does the same pair come back annually, and what is the length of a swallow's life, and if the parent birds die after four or five years, say, what rule is there as to which pair shall succeed ? But we may ask, I think, many ques- tions connected with the economics of the bird life around us without being able to get any answer. I may also mention that three splendid storks alighted in a field close by in May, —one was shot, and a very handsome specimen he has made in a glass case.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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