1 86 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



1 At Brandon, in Norfolk, are great heaps of sawdust which have settled 

 down into solid masses. In these the sand-martins have burrowed and nested, 

 iust as they do in sand-banks. My attention was first drawn to this singular 

 breeding-place by a note in the Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich 

 Naturalist's Field Club. 



2 The largest colony of sand-martins I have ever seen was in a large gravel- 

 pit at Oswestry, far from any large pool or river, although as a general rule 

 these birds like the neighbourhood of water as White says. 



3 This insect is not the bed-flea, but another, distinct also from those 

 which trouble the swallow and the swift. 



4 I once, late one evening, took a sand-martin off its nest, and it lay in the 

 palm of my hand, not attempting to fly away, but apparently arranging itself 

 again for sleep, and almost too lazy to scramble back again into its hole. 



LETTER XXI. 



SELBORNE, Sept. 2%th, 1774. 



DEAR SIR, As the swift or black-martin is the largest of the 

 British hirundines, so it is 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 remember- 

 ing 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. 



