170 HOUSE-MAETINS. 



species. Unless these birds are very short-lived, indeed, or 

 unless they do not return to the district where they are bred, 

 they must undergo vast devastation somehow and somewhere; 

 for the birds that return yearly bear no manner of proportion 

 to the birds that retire. 



House-martins are distinguished from their congeners by 

 having their legs covered with soft downy feathers down to 

 their toes. They are no songsters, but twitter, in a pretty, 

 inward, soft manner, in their nests. During the time of 

 breeding, they are often greatly molested with fleas. 



LETTEE LVl. 



TO THE SAME. 



RiNGMEK, near Lewes, Dec. 9, 1773. 

 Deae Ste, — I received your last favour just as I was setting 

 out for this place; and am pleased to find that my monography 

 met with your approbation. My remarks are the result of 

 many years' observation ; and are, I trust, true on the whole ; 

 though T do not pretend to say that they are perfectly void 

 of mistake, or that a more nice observer might not make 

 many additions, since subjects of this kind are inexhaustible. 



T>oor little emigrant was dead the next morning : poor little fellow, the long 

 continued easterly winds had driven him completely out of his reckoning, and 

 from the appearance of his emaciated body when I skinned him, he had 

 probably been seven or eight days without food. We are apt to imagine 

 that because some birds fly to Africa, they must be tired before they get there, 

 but I do not see any occasion for any of our birds to go a greater distance than 

 across the channel, and then they may go southward by easy stages: the 

 greatest distance that I am aware of that a (land) bird of passage has to fly, is 

 from Australia to New Zealand, more than 1000 miles without one resting 

 place, yet this is accomplished by two beautiful species of cuckoo, one of those 

 is not larger than a wagtail, yet even this long flight may be made in little more 

 than one day. The natives say these birds come fiom Hawaihi ; if it is a fact 

 that they are found there, it will prove not only the great range of flight, but 

 confirm the account of the natives having originally come from thence, and like- 

 ^vise tend to show how correct they arc in their observations of nature, and 

 how well they remember all their ancient traditions." — H. C. 



