OF SELBORNE. 109 
though, it must be acknowledged, not so commonly 
as the house-swallow, and the feat is done in so 
quick a manner as not to be perceptible to indiffer- 
ent observers. He also advances some (I was go. 
ing to say) improbable facts; as when he says of 
the woodcock that “ pudlos rostro portat fugiens 
ab hoste.”* But candour forbids me to say abso» 
lutely that any fact is false because I have never 
been witness to sucha fact. [have only to remark, 
that the long unwieldy bill of the woodcock 1s per- 
haps the worst adapted of any among the winged 
creation for such a feat of natural affection. 
LETTER, XXXII 
Selborne, Oct. 29, 1770. 
Dear Sir,—AFTER an ineffectual search in Lin. 
nzeus, Brisson, &c., I begin to suspect that I discern 
my brother’s hirundo byberna in Scopoli’s new-dis- 
covered hirundo rupestris, p. 167. His description 
of “ Supra murina, subtus albida ; rectrices maculé 
ovali alba in latere interno; pedes nudi, nigri; ros- 
trum nigrum ; remiges obscuriores quam plume dor- 
sales ; rectrices remigibus concolores ; caudé emar- 
ginata nec forcipata,’} agrees very well with the 
bird in question; but when he comes to advance 
that it is “ statura hirundinis urbice,”’{ and that 
* “It carries its young in its beak when flying from an enemy.” 
¢ ‘‘ Mouse-coloured above, whitish beneath : the wings having 
a white oval spot on the inside; the feet naked and black ; the 
beak black; the pinions darker than the dorsal plumage; the 
wings and pinions of the same colour; the tail clear and not in- 
dented.” 
{ The size of the house-martin. 
