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As the swift eats, drinks, collects materials for its nest, and, at it
seems, propagates on the wing; it appears to live more in the air
than any other bird, and to perform all functions there save those of
sleeping and incubation.
This hirundo differs widely from its congeners in laying invariably
but two eggs at a time, which are milk-white, long, and peaked at
the small end; whereas the other species lay at each brood from
four to six. It is a most alert bird, rising very early, and retiring to
roost very late; and is on the wing in the height of summer at least
sixteen hours. In the longest days it does not withdraw to rest till a
quarter before nine in the evening, being the latest of all day birds.
Just before they retire whole groups of them assemble high in the
air, and squeak, and shoot about with wonderful rapidity. But this
bird is never so much alive as in sultry thundry weather, when it
expresses great alacrity, and calls forth all its powers. In hot
mornings several, getting together in little parties, dash round the
steeples and churches, squeaking as they go in a very clamorous
manner; these, by nice observers, are supposed to be males,
serenading their sitting hens; and not without reason, since they
seldom squeak till they come close to the walls or eaves, and since
those within utter at the same time a little inward note of
complacency.
When the hen has sat hard all day, she rushes forth just as it is
almost dark, and stretches and relieves her weary limbs, and
snatches a scanty meal for a few minutes, and then returns to her
duty of incubation. Swifts, when wantonly and cruelly shot while
they have young, discover a little lump of insects in their mouths,
which they pouch and hold under their tongue. In general they feed
in a much higher district than the other species; a proof that gnats
and other insects do also abound to a considerable height in the air:
they also range to vast distances; since locomotion is no labour to
them, who are endowed with such wonderful powers of wing.
Their powers seem to be in proportion to their levers; and their
wings are longer in proportion than those of almost any other bird.
When they mute, or ease themselves in flight, they raise their
wings, and make them meet over their backs.
At some certain times in the summer I had remarked that swifts
were hawking very low for hours together over pools and streams;
and could not help inquiring into the object of their pursuit that
induced them to descend so much below their usual range. After
some trouble, I found that they were taking phryganeae,
ephemerae, and libellulae (cadew-flies, may-flies, and dragon-
flies) that were just emerged out of their aurelia state. I then no
longer wondered that they should be so willing to stoop for a prey
that afforded them such plentiful and succulent nourishment.
They bring out their young about the middle or latter end of July:
but as these never become perchers, nor, that ever I could discern,
are fed on the wing by their dams, the coming forth of the young is
not so notorious as in the other species.
On the thirtieth of last June I untiled the eaves of an house where
many pairs build, and found in each nest only two squab naked
pulli: on the eighth of July I repeated the same inquiry, and found
they had made very little progress towards a fledged state, but were
still naked and helpless. From whence we may conclude that birds
whose way of life keeps them perpetually on the wing would not be
able to quit their nest till the end of the month. Swallows and
martins, that have numerous families, are continually feeding them
every two or three minutes; while swifts, that have but two young
to maintain, are much at their leisure, and do not attend on their
nests for hours together.
Sometimes they pursue and strike at hawks that come in their way;
but not with that vehemence and fury that swallows express on the
same occasion. They are out all day long in wet days, feeding
about, and disregarding still rain: from whence two things may be
gathered; first, that many insects abide high in the air, even in rain;
and next, that the feathers of these birds must be well preened to
resist so much wet. Windy, and particularly windy weather with
heavy showers, they dislike; and on such days withdraw, and are
scarce ever seen.
There is a circumstance respecting the colour of swifts, which
seems not to be unworthy our attention. When they arrive in the
spring they are all over of a glossy, dark soot-colour, except their
chins, which are white; but, by being all day long in the sun and
air, they become quite weather-beaten and bleached before they
depart, and yet they return glossy again in the spring. Now, if they
pursue the sun into lower latitudes, as some suppose, in order to
enjoy a perpetual summer, why do they not return bleached ? Do
they not rather perhaps retire to rest for a season, and at that
juncture moult and change their feathers, since all other birds are
known to moult soon after the season of breeding?
Swifts are very anomalous in many particulars, dissenting from all
their congeners not only in the number of their young, but in
breeding but once in a summer; whereas all the other British
hirundines breed invariably twice. It is past all doubt that swifts
can breed but once, since they withdraw in a short time after the
flight of their young, and some time before their congeners bring
out their second brood. We may here remark, that, as swifts breed
but once in a summer, and only two at a time, and the other
hirundines twice, the latter, who lay from four to six eggs, increase
at an average five times as fast as the former.
But in nothing are swifts more singular than in their early retreat.
They retire, as to the main body of them, by the tenth of August,
and sometimes a few days sooner: and every straggler invariably
withdraws by the twentieth, while their congeners, all of them, stay
till the beginning of October; many of them all through that month,
and some occasionally to the beginning of November. This early
retreat is mysterious and wonderful, since that time is often the
sweetest season in the year. But, what is more extraordinary, they
begin to retire still earlier in the most southerly parts of Andalusia,
where they can be no ways influenced by any defect of heat; or, as
one might suppose, defect of food. Are they regulated in their
motions with us by a failure of food, or by a propensity to
moulting, or by a disposition to rest after so rapid a life, or by
what? This is one of those incidents in natural history that not only
baffles our searches, but almost eludes our guesses!
These hirundines never perch on trees or roofs, and so never
congregate with their congeners. They are fearless while haunting
their nesting places, and are not to be scared with a gun; and are
often beaten down with poles and cudgels as they stoop to go under
the eaves. Swifts are much infested with those pests to the genus
called hippoboscae hirundinis; and often wriggle and scratch
themselves, in their flight, to get rid of that clinging annoyance.
Swifts are no songsters, and have only one harsh screaming note;
yet there are ears to which it is not displeasing, from an agreeable
association of ideas, since that note never occurs but in the most
lovely summer weather.
They never settle on the ground but through accident; and when
down can hardly rise, on account of the shortness of their legs and
the length of their wings: neither can they walk, but only crawl; but
they have a strong grasp with their feet, by which they cling to
walls. Their bodies being flat they can enter a very narrow crevice;
and where they cannot pass on their bellies they will turn up
edgewise.
The particular formation of the foot discriminates the swift from
all British hirundines; and indeed from all other known birds, the
hirundo melba, great white-bellied swift of Gibraltar, excepted; for
it is so disposed as to carry 'omnes quatuor digitos anticos' all its
four toes forward; besides, the least toe, which should be the back-
toe, consists of one bone alone, and the other three only of two
apiece. A construction most rare and peculiar, but nicely adapted to
the purposes in which their feet are employed. This, and some
peculiarities attending the nostrils and under mandible, have
induced a discerning naturalist* to suppose that this species might
constitute a genus per se.
(* John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M.D.)
In London a party of swifts frequents the Tower, playing and
feeding over the river just below the bridge; others haunt some of
the churches of the Borough next the fields; but do not venture,
like the house-martin, into the close crowded part of the town.
The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent name on this swallow,
calling it ring swala, form the perpetual rings or circles that it takes
round the scene of its nidification.
Swifts feed on coleoptera, or small beetles with hard cases over
their wings, as well as on the softer insects; 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
hippoboscae, 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 the fifth of July, 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 storge (in Greek) 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 elikia (in Greek) or
state of perfection; while the progressive growth of men and large
quadrupeds is slow and tedious!
I am, etc.
Letter XXII
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Sept. 13, 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 consideraable
depth in the chimney, was somewhat interrupted by apprehensions
lest my eyes might undergo the same fate with those of Tobit.*
(* Tobit ii. 10.)
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 the 4th, the swift on April the 24th, the bank-martin
on April the 12th, and the house-martin not till April the 30th. At
South Zele, Devonshire, swallows did not arrive till April the 25th;
swifts, in plenty, on May the 1st; and house-martins not till the
middle of May. At Blackburn, in Lancashire, swifts were seen
April the 28th, swallows April the 29th, house-martins May the 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.
Linnaeus says that hawks 'paciscuntur inducias cum avibus,
quamdiu cuculus cuculat' but it appears to me that, during that
period, many little birds are taken and destroyed by birds of prey,
as may be seen by their feathers left in lanes and under hedges.
The missel-thrush is, while breeding, fierce and pugnacious,
driving such birds as approach its nest, with great fury, to a
distance. The Welch call it pen y llwyn, the head or master of the
coppice. He suffers no magpie, jay, or blackbird, to enter the
garden where he haunts; and is, for the time, a good guard to the
new-sown legumens. In general he is very successful in the defence
of his family: but once I observed in my garden, that several
magpies came determined to storm the nest of a missel-thrush: the
dams defended their mansion with great vigour, and fought
resolutely pro aris & focis; but numbers at last prevailed, they tore
the nest to pieces, and swallowed the young alive.
In the season of notification the wildest birds are comparatively
tame. Thus the ring-dove breeds in my fields, though they are
continually frequented; and the missel-thrush, though most shy and
wild in the autumn and winter, builds in my garden close to a walk
where people are passing all day long.
Wall-fruit abounds with me this year: but my grapes, that used to
be forward and good, are at present backward beyond all
precedent: and this is not the worst of the story; for the same
ungenial weather, the same black cold solstice, has injured the
more necessary fruits of the earth, and discoloured and blighted our
wheat. The crop of hops promises to be very large.
Frequent returns of deafness incommode me sadly, and half
disqualify me for a naturalist; for, when those fits are upon me, I
lose all the pleasing notices and little intimations arising from rural
sounds: and May is to me as silent and mute with respect to the
notes of birds, etc., as August. My eyesight is, thank God, quick
and good; but with respect to the other sense, I am, at times,
disabled:
And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
Letter XXIII
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, June 8, 1775.
Dear Sir,
On September the 21st, 1741, being then on a visit, and intent on
field-diversions, I rose before daybreak: when I came into the
enclosures, I found the stubbles and clover-grounds matted all over
with a thick coat of cobweb, in the meshes of which a copious and
heavy dew hung so plentifully that the whole face of the country
seemed, as it were, covered with two or three setting-nets drawn
one over another. When the dogs attempted to hunt, their eyes were
so blinded and hoodwinked that they could not proceed, but were
obliged to lie down and scrape the incumbrances from their faces
with their fore-feet, so that, finding my sport interrupted, I returned
home musing in my mind on the oddness of the occurrence.
As the morning advanced the sun became bright and warm, and the
day turned out one of those most lovely ones which no season but
the autumn produces; cloudless, calm, serene, and worthy of the
South of France itself.
About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand our
attention, a shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated regions,
and continuing, without any interruption, till the close of the day.
These webs were not single filmy threads, floating in the air in all
directions, but perfect flakes or rags; some near an inch broad, and
five or six long, which fell with a degree of velocity which showed
they were considerably heavier than the atmosphere.
On every side as the observer turned his eyes might he behold a
continual succession of fresh flakes falling into his sight, and
twinkling like stars as they turned their sides towards the sun.
How far this wonderful shower extended would be difficult to say;
but we know that it reached Bradley, Selborne, and Alresford, three
places which lie in a sort of a triangle, the shortest of whose sides
is about eight miles in extent.
At the second of those places there was a gentleman (for whose
veracity and intelligent turn we have the greatest veneration) who
observed it the moment he got abroad; but concluded that, as soon
as he came upon the hill above his house, where he took his
morning rides, he should be higher than this meteor, which he
imagined might have been blown, like thistle-down, from the
common above: but, to his great astonishment, when he rode to the
most elevated part of the down, 300 feet above his fields, he found
the webs in appearance still as much above him as before; still
descending into sight in a constant succession, and twinkling in the
sun, so as to draw the attention of the most incurious.
Neither before nor after was any such fall observed; but on this day
the flakes hung in the trees and hedges so thick, that a diligent
person sent out might have gathered baskets full.
The remark that I shall make on these cobweb-like appearances,
called gossamer, is, that, strange and superstitious as the notions
about them were formerly, nobody in these days doubts but that
they are the real production of small spiders, which swarm in the
fields in fine weather in autumn, and have a power of shooting out
webs from their tails so as to render themselves buoyant, and
lighter than air. But why these rapturous insects should that day
take such a wonderful aerial excursion, and why their webs should
at once become so gross and material as to be considerably more
weighty than air, and to descend with precipitation, is a matter
beyond my skill. If I might be allowed to hazard a supposition, I
should imagine that those filmy threads, when first shot, might be
entangled in the rising dew, and so drawn up, spiders and all, by a
brisk evaporation into the region where clouds are formed: and if
the spiders have a power of coiling and thickening their webs in the
air, as Dr. Lister says they have [see his Letters to Mr. Ray], then,
when they were become heavier than the air, they must fall.
Every day in fine weather, in autumn chiefly, do I see those spiders
shooting out their webs and mounting aloft: they will go off from
your finger if you will take them into your hand. Last summer one
alighted on my book as I was reading in the parlour; and, running
to the top of the page, and shooting out a web, took its departure
from thence. But what I most wondered at, was that it went off
with considerable velocity in a place where no air was stirring; and
I am sure that I did not assist it with my breath. So that these little
crawlers seem to have, while mounting, some loco-motive power
without the use of wings, and to move in the air, faster then the air
itself.
Letter XXIV
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Aug. 15, 1775.
Dear Sir,
There is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute creation,
independent of sexual attachment: the congregating of gregarious
birds in the winter is a remarkable instance.
Many horses, though quiet with company, will not stay one minute
in a field by themselves: the strongest fences cannot restrain them.
My neighbour's horse will not only not stay by himself abroad, but
he will not bear to be left alone in a strange stable without
discovering the utmost impatience, and endeavouring to break the
rack and manger with his fore feet. He has been known to leap out
at a stable-window, through which dung was thrown, after
company; and yet in other respects is remarkably quiet. Oxen and
cows will not fatten by themselves; but will neglect the finest
pasture that is not recommended by society. It would be needless to
instance in sheep, which constantly flock together.
But this propensity seems not to be confined to animals of the same
species; for we know a doe still alive, that was brought up from a
little fawn with a dairy of cows; with them it goes afield, and with
them it returns to the yard. The dogs of the house take no notice of
this deer, being used to her; but, if strange dogs come by, a chase
ensues; while the master smiles to see his favourite securely
leading her pursuers over hedge, or gate, or stile, till she returns to
the cows, who, with fierce longings and menacing horns, drive the
assailants quite out of the pasture.
Even great disparity of kind and size does not always prevent social
advances and mutual fellowship. For a very intelligent and
observant person has assured me that, in the former part of his life,
keeping but one horse, he happened also on a time to have but one
solitary hen. These two incongruous animals spent much of their
time together in a lonely orchard, where they saw no creature but
each other. By degrees an apparent regard began to take place
between these two sequestered individuals. The fowl would
approach the quadruped with notes of complacency, rubbing
herself gently against his legs; while the horse would look down
with satisfaction, and move with the greatest caution and
circumspection, lest he should trample on his diminutive
companion. Thus, by mutual good offices, each seemed to console
the vacant hours of the other: so that Milton, when he puts the
following sentiment in the mouth of Adam, seems to be somewhat
mistaken:
Much less can bird with beast, or fish with fowl,
So well converse, nor with the ox the ape.
I am, etc.
Letter XXV
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Oct. 2, 1775.
Dear Sir,
We have two gangs or hordes of gypsies which infest the south and
west of England, and come round in their circuit two or three times
in the year. One of these tribes calls itself by the noble name of
Stanley, of which I have nothing particular to say; but the other is
distinguished by an appellative somewhat remarkable. -- As far as
their harsh gibberish can be understood, they seem to say that the
name of their clan is Curleople; now the termination of this word is
apparently Grecian: and as Mezeray and the gravest historians all
agree that these vagrants did certainly migrate from Egypt and the
East two or three centuries ago, and so spread by degrees over
Europe, may not this name, a little corrupted, be the very name
they brought with them from the Levant? It would be matter of
some curiosity, could one meet with an intelligent person among
them, to inquire whether, in their jargon, they still retain any Greek
words: the Greek radicals will appear in hand, foot, head, water,
earth, etc. It is possible that amidst their cant and corrupted dialect
many mutilated remains of their native language might still be
discovered.
With regard to those peculiar people, the gypsies, one thing is very
remarkable, and especially as they came from warmer climates;
and that is, that while other beggars lodge in barns, stables, and
cow-houses, these sturdy savages seem to pride themselves in
braving the severities of winter, and in living sub dio the whole
year round. Last September was as wet a month as ever was
known; and yet during those deluges did a young gypsy-girl lie-in
in the midst of one of our hop-gardens, on the cold ground, with
nothing over her but a piece of blanket extended on a few hazel-
rods bent hoop-fashion, and stuck into the earth at each end, in
circumstances too trying for a cow in the same condition: yet
within this garden there was a large hop-kiln, into the chambers of
which she might have retired, had she thought shelter an object
worthy her attention.
Europe itself, it seems, cannot set bounds to the rovings of those
vagabonds; for Mr. Bell, in his return from Peking, met a gang of
these people on the confines of Tartary, who were endeavouring to
penetrate those deserts and try their fortune in China.*
(* See Bell's Travels in China.)
Gypsies are called in French, Bohemians; in Italian and modern
Greek, Zingari.
I am, etc.
Letter XXVI
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Nov. 1, 1775.
Dear Sir,
Hic ... taedae pingues, hic plurimus ignis
Semper, et assidua postes fuligine nigri.
I shall make no apology for troubling you with the detail of a very
simple piece of domestic Economy, being satisfied that you think
nothing beneath your attention that tends to utility: the matter
alluded to is the use of rushes instead of candles, which I am well
aware prevails in many districts besides this; but as I know there
are countries also where it does not obtain, and as I have
considered the subject with some degree of exactness, I shall
proceed in my humble story, and leave you to judge of the
expediency.
The proper species of rush for this purpose seems to be the juncus
effusus, or common soft rush, which is to be found in most moist
pastures, by the sides of streams, and under hedges. These rushes
are in best condition in the height of summer; but may be gathered,
so as to serve the purpose well, quite on to autumn. It would be
needless to add that the largest and longest are best. Decayed
labourers, women, and children, make it their business to procure
and prepare them. As soon as they are cut they must be flung into
water, and kept there; for otherwise they will dry and shrink, and
the peel will not run. At first a person would find it no easy matter
to divest a rush of its peel or rind, so as to leave one regular,
narrow, even rib from top to bottom that may support the pith: but
this, like other feats, soon becomes familiar even to children; and
we have seen an old woman, stone-blind, performing this business
with great dispatch, and seldom failing to strip them with the nicest
regularity. When these junci are thus far prepared, they must lie out
on the grass to be bleached, and take the dew for some nights, and
afterwards be dried in the sun.
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