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I did not fail to look particularly after my new migration of ring-
ousels; and to take notice whether they continued on the downs to
this season of the year; as I had formerly remarked them in the
month of October all the way from Chichester to Lewes wherever
there were any shrubs and covert: but not one bird of this sort came
within my observation. I only saw a few larks and whin-chats,
some rooks, and several kites and buzzards.

About Midsummer a flight of cross-bills comes to the pine-groves
about this house, but never makes any long stay.

The old tortoise, that I have mentioned in a former letter, still
continues in this garden; and retired under ground about the
twentieth of November, and came out again for one day on the
thirtieth: it lies now buried in a wet swampy border under a wall
facing to the south, and is enveloped at present in mud and mire!

Here is a large rookery round this house, the inhabitants of which
seem to get their livelihood very easily; for they spend the greatest
part of the day on their nest-trees when the weather is mild. These
rooks retire every evening all the winter from this rookery, where
they only call by the way, as they are going to roost in deep woods:
at the dawn of day they always revisit their nest-trees, and are
preceded a few minutes by a flight of daws, that act, as it were, as
their harbingers.

I am, etc.

Letter XVIII
To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Jan. 29, 1774.

Dear Sir,

The house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, is undoubtedly the first
comer of all the British hirundines; and appears in general on or
about the thirteenth of April, as I have remarked from many years'
observation. Not but now and then a straggler is seen much earlier:
and, in particular, when I was a boy I observed a swallow for a
whole day together on a sunny warm Shrove Tuesday; which day
could not fall out later than the middle of March, and often
happened early in February.

It is worth remarking that these birds are seen first about lakes and
mill-ponds; and it is also very particular, that if these early visitors
happen to find frost and snow, as was the case of the two dreadful
springs of 1770 and 1771, they immediately withdraw for a time. A
circumstance this much more in favour of hiding than migration;
since it is much more probable that a bird should retire to its
hybernaculum just at hand, than return for a week or two only to
warmer latitudes.

The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no means
builds altogether in chimneys, but often within barns and out-
houses against the rafters; and so she did in Virgil's time:

... Ante
Garrulla quam tignis nidos suspendat hirundo.

In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called ladu swala, the barn-
swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe there are no
chimneys to houses, except they are English-built: in these
countries she constructs her nest in porches, and gateways, and
galleries, and open halls.

Here and there a bird may affect some odd, peculiar place; as we
have known a swallow build down the shaft of an old well, through
which chalk had been formerly drawn up for the purpose of
manure: but in general with us this hirundo breeds in chimneys;
and loves to haunt those stacks where there is a constant fire, no
doubt for the sake of warmth. Not that it can subsist in the
immediate shaft where there is a fire; but prefers one adjoining to
that of the kitchen, and disregards the perpetual smoke of that
funnel, as I have often observed with some degree of wonder.

Five or six or more feet down the chimney does this little bird
begin to form her nest about the middle of May, which consists,
like that of the house-martin, of a crust or shell composed of dirt or
mud, mixed with short pieces of straw to render it tough and
permanent; with this difference, that whereas the shell of the
martin is nearly hemispheric, that of the swallow is open at the top,
and like half a deep dish: this nest is lined with fine grasses, and
feathers which are often collected as they float in the air.

Wonderful is the address which this adroit bird shows all day long
in ascending and descending with security through so narrow a
pass. When hovering over the mouth of the funnel, the vibrations
of her wings acting on the confined air occasion a rumbling like
thunder. It is not improbable that the dam submits to this
inconvenient situation so low in the shaft, in order to secure her
broods from rapacious birds, and particularly from owls, which
frequently fall down chimneys, perhaps in attempting to get at
these nestlings.

The swallow lays from four to six white eggs, dotted with red
specks; and brings out her first brood about the last week in June,
or the first week in July. The progressive method by which the
young are introduced into life is very amusing: first, they emerge
from the shaft with difficulty enough, and often fall down into the
rooms below: for a day or so they are fed on the chimney-top, and
then are conducted to the dead leafless bough of some tree, where,
sitting in a row, they are attended with great assiduity, and may
then be called perchers. In a day or two more they become flyers,
but are still unable to take their own food; therefore they play
about near the place where the dams are hawking for flies; and
when a mouthful is collected, at a certain signal given, the dam and
the nestling advance, rising towards each other, and meeting at an
angle; the young one all the while uttering such a little quick note
of gratitude and complacency, that a person must have paid very
little regard to the wonders of nature that has not often remarked
this feat.

The dam betakes herself immediately to the business of a second
brood as soon as she is disengaged from her first; which at once
associates with the first broods of house-martins; and with them
congregates, clustering on sunny roofs, towers, and trees. This
hirundo brings out her second brood towards the middle and end of
August.

All the summer long is the swallow a most instructive pattern of
unwearied industry and affection; for, from morning to night, while
there is a family to be supported, she spends the whole day in
skimming close to the ground, and exerting the most sudden turns
and quick evolutions. Avenues, and long walks under hedges, and
pasture-fields, and mown meadows where cattle graze, are her
delight, especially if there are trees interspersed; because in such
spots insects most abound. When a fly is taken a smart snap from
her bill is heard, resembling the noise at the shutting of a watch-
case; but the motion of the mandibles are too quick for the eye.

The swallow, probably the male bird, is the excubitor to house-
martins, and other little birds, announcing the approach of birds of
prey. For as soon as an hawk appears, with a shrill alarming note
he calls all the swallows and martins about him; who pursue in a
body, and buffet and strike their enemy till they have driven him
from the village, darting down from above on his back, and rising
in a perpendicular line in perfect security. This bird also will sound
the alarm, and strike at cats when they climb on the roofs of
houses, or otherwise approach the nests. Each species of hirundo
drinks as it flies along, sipping the surface of the water; but the
swallow alone, in general, washes on the wing, by dropping into a
pool for many times together: in very hot weather house-martins
and bank-martins dip and wash a little.

The swallow is a delicate songster, and in soft sunny weather sings
both perching and flying; on trees in a kind of concert, and on
chimney-tops: is also a bold flyer, ranging to distant downs and
commons even in windy weather, which the other species seem
much to dislike; nay, even frequenting exposed sea-port towns, and
making little excursions over the salt water. Horsemen on wide
downs are often closely attended by a little party of swallows for
miles together, which plays before and behind them, sweeping
around, and collecting all the skulking insects that are roused by
the trampling of the horses' feet: when the wind blows hard,
without this expedient, they are often forced to settle to pick up
their lurking prey.

This species feeds much on little coleoptera, as well as on gnats
and flies: and often settles on dug ground, or paths, for gravels to
grind and digest its food. Before they depart, for some weeks, to a
bird, they forsake houses and chimnies, and roost in trees; and
usually withdraw about the beginning of October; though some few
stragglers may appear on at times till the first week in November.

Some few pairs haunt the new and open streets of London next the
fields, but do not enter, like the house-martin, the close and
crowded parts of the city.

Both male and female are distinguished from their congeners by
the length and forkedness of their tails. They are undoubtedly the
most nimble of all the species: and when the male pursues the
female in amorous chase, they then go beyond their usual speed,
and exert a rapidity almost too quick for the eye to follow.

After this circumstantial detail of the life and discerning otorge (in
Greek) of the swallow, I shall add, for your farther amusement, an
anecdote or two not much in favour of her sagacity:

A certain swallow built for two years together on the handles of a
pair of garden-shears, that were stuck up against the boards in an
out-house, and therefore must have her nest spoiled whenever that
implement was wanted: and, what is stranger still, another bird of
the same species built its nest on the wings and body of an owl that
happened by accident to hang dead and dry from the rafter of a
barn. This owl, with the nest on its wings, and with eggs in the
nest, was brought as a curiosity worthy the most elegant private
museum in Great Britain. The owner, struck with the oddity of the
sight, furnished the bringer with a large shell, or conch, desiring
him to fix it just where the owl hung: the person did as he was
ordered, and the following year a pair, probably the same pair, built
their nest in the conch, and laid their eggs.

The owl and the conch make a strange grotesque appearance, and
are not the least curious specimens in that wonderful collection of
art and nature.*
(* Sir Ashton Lever's Museum.)

Thus is instinct in animals, taken the least out of its way, an
undistinguishing, limited faculty; and blind to every circumstance
that does not immediately respect self-preservation, or lead at once
to the propagation or support of their species.

I am,

With all respect, etc., etc.

Letter XIX
To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Feb. 14, 1774.

Dear Sir,

I received your favour of the eighth, and am pleased to find that
you read my little history of the swallow with your usual candour:
nor was I less pleased to find that you made objections where you
saw reason.

As to the quotations, it is difficult to say precisely which species of
hirundo Virgil might intend in the lines in question, since the
ancients did not attend to specific differences like modern
naturalists: yet somewhat may be gathered, enough to incline me to
suppose that in the two passages quoted the poet had his eye on the
swallow.

In the first place the epithet garrula suits the swallow well, who is a
great songster; but not the martin, which is rather a mute bird; and
when it sings is so inward as scarce to be heard. Besides, if tignum
in that place signifies a rafter rather than a beam, as it seems to me
to do, then I think it must be the swallow that is alluded to, and not
the martin; since the former does frequently build within the roof
against the rafters; while the latter always, as far as I have been
able to observe, builds without the roof against eaves and cornices.

As to the simile, too much stress must not be laid on it: yet the
epithet nigra speaks plainly in favour of the swallow, whose back
and wings are very black; while the rump of the martin is milk-
white, its back and wings blue, and all its under part white as snow.
Nor can the clumsy motions (comparatively clumsy) of the martin
well represent the sudden and artful evolutions and quick turns
which Juturna gave to her brother's chariot, so as to elude the eager
pursuit of the enraged Aeneas. The verb sonat also seems to imply
a bird that is somewhat loquacious.*
(* Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis aedes
Pervolat, et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo,
Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus escas:
Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circum
Stagna sonat ...)

We have had a very wet autumn and winter, so as to raise the
springs to a pitch beyond any thing since 1764; which was a
remarkable year for floods and high waters. The land-springs,
which we call lavants, break out much on the downs of Sussex,
Hampshire, and Wiltshire. The country people say when the
lavants rise corn will always be dear; meaning that when the earth
is so glutted with water as to send forth springs on the downs and
uplands, that the corn-vales must be drowned; and so it has proved
for these ten or eleven years past. For land-springs have never
obtained more since the memory of man than during that period;
nor has there been known a greater scarcity of all sorts of grain,
considering the great improvements of modern husbandry. Such a
run of wet seasons a century or two ago would, I am persuaded,
have occasioned a famine. Therefore pamphlets and newspaper
letters, that talk of combinations, tend to inflame and mislead;
since we must not expect plenty till Providence sends us more
favourable seasons.

The wheat of last year, all round this district, and in the county of
Rutland, and elsewhere, yields remarkably bad: and our wheat on
the ground, by the continual late sudden vicissitudes from fierce
frost to pouring rains, looks poorly; and the turnips rot very fast.

Letter XX
To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Feb. 26, 1774.

Dear Sir,

The sand-martin, or bank-martin, is by much the least of any of the
British hirundines; and, as far as we have ever seen, the smallest
known hirundo; though Brisson asserts that there is one much
smaller, and that is the hirundo esculenta.

But it is much to be regretted that it is scarce possible for any
observer to be so full and exact as he could wish in reciting the
circumstances attending the life and conversation of this little bird,
since it is fera natura, at least in this part of the kingdom,
disclaiming all domestic attachments, and haunting wild heaths
and commons where there are large lakes; while the other species,
especially the swallow and house-martin, are remarkably gentle
and domesticated, and never seem to think themselves safe but
under the protection of man.

Here are in this parish, in the sand-pits and banks of the lakes of
Wolmer-forest, several colonies of these birds; and yet they are
never seen in the village; nor do they at all frequent the cottages
that are scattered about in that wild district. The only instance I
ever remember where this species haunts any building is at the
town of Bishop's Waltham, in this county, where many sand-
martins nestle and breed in the scaffold-holes of the back-wall of
William of Wykeham's stables: but then this wall stands in a very
sequestered and retired enclosure, and faces upon a large and
beautiful lake. And indeed this species seems so to delight in large
waters, that no instance occurs of their abounding, but near vast
pools or rivers: and in particular it has been remarked that they
swarm in the banks of the Thames in some places below London-
bridge.

It is curious to observe with what different degrees of architectonic
skill Providence has endowed birds of the same genus, and so
nearly correspondent in their general mode of life! for while the
swallow and the house-martin discover the greatest address in
raising and securely fixing crusts or shells of loam as cunabula for
their young, the bank-martin terebrates a round and regular hole in
the sand or earth, which is serpentine, horizontal, and about two
feet deep. At the inner end of this burrow does this bird deposit, in
a good degree of safety, her rude nest, consisting of fine grasses
and feathers, usually goose-feathers, very inartificially laid
together.

Perseverance will accomplish anything: though at first one would
be disinclined to believe that this weak bird, with her soft and
tender bill and claws, should ever be able to bore the stubborn
sand-bank without entirely disabling herself; yet with these feeble
instruments have I seen a pair of them make great dispatch: and
could remark how much they had scooped that day by the fresh
sand which ran down the bank, and was of a different colour from
that which lay loose and bleached in the sun.

In what space of time these little artists are able to mine and finish
these cavities I have never been able to discover, for reasons given
above; but it would be a matter worthy of observation, where it
falls in the way of any naturalist to make his remarks. This I have
often taken notice of, that several holes of different depths are left
unfinished at the end of summer. To imagine that these beginnings
were intentionally made in order to be in the greater forwardness
for next spring, is allowing perhaps too much foresight and rerum
prudentia to a simple bird. May not the cause of these latebrae
being left unfinished arise from their meeting in those places with
strata too harsh, hard, and solid, for their purpose, which they
relinquish, and go to a fresh spot that works more freely ? Or may
they not in other places fall in with a soil as much too loose and
mouldering, liable to flounder, and threatening to overwhelm them
and their labours ?

One thing is remarkable -- that, after some years, the old holes are
forsaken and new ones bored; perhaps because the old habitations
grow foul and fetid from long use, or because they may so abound
with fleas as to become untenable. This species of swallow
moreover is strangely annoyed with fleas: and we have seen fleas,
bed-fleas (pulex irritans), swarming at the mouths of these holes,
like bees upon the stools of their hives.

The following circumstance should by no means be omitted -- that
these birds do not make use of their caverns by way of
hybernacula, as might be expected; since banks so perforated have
been dug out with care in the winter, when nothing was found but
empty nests.

The sand-martin arrives much about the same time with the
swallow, and lays, as she does, from four to six white eggs. But as
the species is cryptogame, carrying on the business of nidification,
incubation, and the support of its young in the dark, it would not be
so easy to ascertain the time of breeding, were it not for the coming
forth of the broods, which appear much about the time, or rather
somewhat earlier than those of the swallow. The nestlings are
supported in common like those of their congeners, with gnats and
other small insects; and sometimes they are fed with libellulae
(dragon-flies) almost as long as themselves. In the last week in
June we have seen a row of these sitting on a rail near a great pool
as perchers; and so young and helpless, as easily to be taken by
hand: but whether the dams ever feed them on the wing, as
swallows and house-martins do, we have never yet been able to
determine; nor do we know whether they pursue and attack birds of
prey.

When they happen to breed near hedges and enclosures, they are
dispossessed of their breeding holes by the house-sparrow, which is
on the same account a fell adversary to house-martins.

These hirundines are no songsters, but rather mute, making only a
little harsh noise when a person approaches their nests. They seem
not to be of a sociable turn, never with us congregating with their
congeners in the autumn. Undoubtedly they breed a second time,
like the house-martin and swallow; and withdraw about
Michaelmas.

Though in some particular districts they may happen to abound, yet
in the whole, in the south of England at least, is this much the
rarest species. For there are few towns or large villages but what
abound with house-martins; few churches, towers, or steeples, but
what are haunted by some swifts; scarce a hamlet or single cottage-
chimney that has not its swallow; while the bank-martins, scattered
here and there, live a sequestered life among some abrupt sand-
hills, and in the banks of some few rivers.

These birds have a peculiar manner of flying; flitting about with
odd jerks, and vacillations, not unlike the motions of a butterfly.
Doubtless the flight of all hirundines is influenced by, and adapted
to, the peculiar sort of insects which furnish their food. Hence it
would be worth inquiry to examine what particular group of insects
affords the principal food of each respective species of swallow.

Notwithstanding what has been advanced above, some few sand-
martins, I see, haunt the skirts of London, frequenting the dirty
pools in Saint George's-Fields, and about White-Chapel. The
question is where these build, since there are no banks or bold
shores in that neighbourhood: perhaps they nestle in the scaffold-
holes of some old or new deserted building. They dip and wash as
they fly sometimes, like the house-martin and swallow.

Sand-martins differ from their congeners in the diminutiveness of
their size, and in their colour, which is what is usually called a
mouse-colour. Near Valencia in Spain, they are taken, says
Willughby, and sold in the markets for the table; and are called by
the country people, probably from their desultory jerking manner
of flight, Papilion de montagna.

Letter XXI
To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Sept. 28, 1774.

Dear Sir,

As the swift or black-martin is the largest of the British hirundines,
so is it undoubtedly the latest comer. For I remember but one
instance of its appearing before the last week in April: and in some
of our late frosty, harsh springs, it has not been seen till the
beginning of May. This species usually arrives in pairs.

The swift, like the sand-martin, is very defective in architecture,
making no crust, or shell, for its nest; but forming it of dry grasses
and feathers, very rudely and inartificially put together. With all
my attention to these birds, I have never been able once to discover
one in the act of collecting or carrying in materials: so that I have
suspected (since their nests are exactly the same) that they
sometimes usurp upon the house-sparrows, and expel them, as
sparrows do the house and sand-martin; well remembering that I
have seen them squabbling together at the entrance of their holes;
and the sparrows up in arms, and much disconcerted at these
intruders. And yet I am assured, by a nice observer in such matters,
that they do collect feathers for their nests in Andalusia; and that
he has shot them with such materials in their mouths.

Swifts, like sand-martins, carry on the business of nidification
quite in the dark, in crannies of castles, and towers, and steeples,
and upon the tops of the walls of churches under the roof; and
therefore cannot be so narrowly watched as those species that build
more openly: but, from what I could ever observe, they begin
nesting about the middle of May; and I have remarked, from eggs
taken, that they have sat hard by the ninth of June. In general they
haunt tall buildings, churches, and steeples, and breed only in such:
yet in this village some pairs frequent the lowest and meanest
cottages, and educate their young under those thatched roofs. We
remember but one instance where they breed out of buildings; and
that is in the sides of a deep chalk-pit near the town of Odiham, in
this county, where we have seen many pairs entering the crevices,
and skimming and squeaking round the precipices.

As I have regarded these amusive birds with no small attention, if I
should advance something new and peculiar with respect to them,
and different from all other birds, I might perhaps be credited;
especially as my assertion is the result of many years' exact
observation. The fact that I would advance is, that swifts tread, or
copulate, on the wing: and I would wish any nice observer, that is
startled at this supposition, to use his own eyes, and I think he will
soon be convinced. In another class of animals, viz., the insect,
nothing is so common as to see the different species of many
genera in conjunction as they fly. The swift is almost continually
on the wing; and as it never settles on the ground, on trees, or
roofs, would seldom find opportunity for amorous rites, was it not
enabled to indulge them in the air. If any person would watch these
birds of a fine morning in May, as they are sailing round at a great
height from the ground, he would see, every now and then, one
drop on the back of another, and both of them sink down together
for many fathoms with a loud piercing shriek. This I take to be the
juncture when the business of generation is carrying on.

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