182 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 
LEW Le ie ok ie, 
TO THE SAME, 
SELBORNE, Seft. 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 contem- 
plating 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 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 Ist, 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 Ist. 
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. 
Linnzus says that hawks “ paciscuntur inductas cum avibus, 
guamaiu cuculus cuculat;” but it appears to me, that during that 
* “The same night also I returned from the burial and slept by the wall of my courtyard, 
being polluted, and my face was uncovered.— 
‘* And I knew not that there were sparrows (swallows ?) in the wall, and mine eyes being 
open, the sparrows muted warm dung into mine eyes, and a whiteness came into mine 
eyes; and I went to the physicians, but they helped me not.’*—Topir ii. 10. 
The Greek word is orzpovééa, pl. Of crpovéfov, dimin. of orpovéés; Commonly translated a 
sparrow, but taken also to mean any small bird. Bochart and the Latin Vulgate take 
them to be hirundines, which the Arabs held as a genus of sparrows, and called the 
“* Sparrow of Paradise.’’—‘‘ Ghusfoor Aljinnut.”’ 
