TOWARDS the end of August a pair of house-martins (or eave-swallows—I prefer the name given them by Richard Jefferies) came to my cottage wall, and clung, two slim, black-and-white fairies, to the rough cob surface. Excited twitterings and peckings for a minute, then they flew away. Almost immediately one returned with a beakful of mud, taken from the verge of a ruddle-red pool in the roadway. This was tacked to the wall, close under the ragged fringe of thatch, and away sped the bird as her mate came with his burden. All day they worked, seeming never to feed.
But the nest grew slowly. Perhaps their other muddied cup had been knocked down by boys, or sparrows had seized it; by their intense eagerness it appeared to me that their first brood had failed altogether; there was something of the frenzy of April in their labour.
In the evening I was amazed by what I saw. The toiling pair had been joined by about a dozen other martins, all bearing beakfuls of mud and grass to the precipitous site. In regular order came mud, quickly moulded and kneaded into place, then came a broken straw, a rootlet, or a twitch of grass. There was just time to place this in position before another bird would arrive. A sweet soft trickle of eagerness fell continually from just above my window. The next morning succour was still availing, and quickly the nest grew. We discussed this in the village, but even the oldest granfer had never heard tell of such a thing before. Toilers in the harvest fields (the “unimaginative labourers”) paused and regarded. They were interested, and many pondered the problem with me.
“League o’ Nations,” grinned one. “There is much friendship among birds,” I said. “Aiy, aiy!” agreed another, and told me in the soft melodious burr of the west country how, in his garden that spring, a robin had fed a nest of hedge-sparrows.
The nest was finished in three days. The lining of feathers was a speedy business, for I scattered a handful on the ground beneath, wishing to give my small aid. I am sure the pair were grateful, for on the fourth day, when I inspected from a ladder, the first egg was laid and the mother was not alarmed by my intrusion.
This intensive construction is not usual. It is not instinctive. It is the result of reason and decency of life in their colonies. Rooks, being amoral, would not help one another. Martins live together in trust and decency. Who, hearing their song (jumbled though it may be), can doubt this.
“League of Nations,” a simple man had said to me. I wondered if the hopes of Richard Jefferies will ever be fulfilled. Are not the eave-swallows wiser than us? Sometimes I think so.