but it does not appear how they can procure gravel to grind their food, as swallows do, since they never settle on the ground. Young ones, over-run with hippoboscœ, are sometimes found under their nests, fallen to the ground, the number of vermin rendering their abode insupportable any longer. They frequent in this village several abject cottages; yet a succession still haunts the same unlikely roofs—a good proof this that the same birds return to the same spots. As they must stoop very low to get up under these humble eaves, cats lie in wait, and sometimes catch them on the wing.
On July 5th, 1775, I again untiled part of a roof over the nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest, but so strongly was she affected by natural στοργὴ for her brood, which she supposed to be in danger, that, regardless of her own safety, she would not stir, but lay sullenly by them, permitting herself to be taken in hand. The squab young we brought down and placed on the grass-plot, where they tumbled about, and were as helpless as a new-born child. While we contemplated their naked bodies, their unwieldy disproportioned abdomina, and their heads, too heavy for their necks to support, we could not but wonder when we reflected that these shiftless beings in a little more than a fortnight would be able to dash through the air almost with the inconceivable swiftness of a meteor,
and perhaps in their emigration must traverse vast continents and oceans as distant as the equator. So soon does Nature advance small birds to their ἡλικία, or state of perfection, while the progressive growth of men and large quadrupeds is slow and tedious!
I am, etc.
LETTER XXII.
Selborne, Sept. 13th, 1774.
Dear Sir,—By means of a straight cottage chimney I had an opportunity this summer of remarking, at my leisure, how swallows ascend and descend through the shaft; but my pleasure in contemplating the address with which this feat was performed to a considerable depth in the chimney was somewhat interrupted by apprehensions lest my eyes might undergo the same fate with those of Tobit.
Perhaps it may be some amusement to you to hear at what times the different species of hirundines arrived this spring in three very distant counties of this kingdom. With us the swallow was seen first on April 4th, the swift on April 24th, the bank-martin on April 12th, and the house-martin not till April 30th. At South Zele, Devonshire, swallows did not arrive till April 25th, swifts in plenty on May 1st, and
house-martins not till the middle of May. At Blackburn, in Lancashire, swifts were seen April 28th, swallows April 29th, house-martins May 1st. Do these different dates, in such distant districts, prove anything for or against migration?
A farmer near Weyhill fallows his land with two teams of asses, one of which works till noon, and the other in the afternoon. When these animals have done their work, they are penned all night, like sheep, on the fallow. In the winter they are confined and foddered in a yard, and make plenty of dung.