NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER LIT. 



SELBORNE, Sept. gtfi, 1781. 



I HAVE just met with a circumstance respecting swifts, which 

 furnishes an exception to the whole tenor of my observations ever 

 since I have bestowed any attention on that species of hirundines. 

 Our swifts, in general, withdrew this year about the first day of 

 August, all save one pair, which in two or three days was reduced 

 to a single bird. The perseverance of this individual made me 

 suspect that the strongest of motives, that of an attachment to her 

 young, could alone occasion so late a stay. I watched therefore 

 till the 24th August, and then discovered that, under the eaves 

 of the church, she attended upon two young, which were fledged, 

 and now put out their white chins from a crevice. These remained 

 till the 27th, looking more alert every day, and seeming to long 

 to be on the wing. After this day they were missing at once ; 

 nor could I ever observe them with their dam coursing round 

 the church in the act of learning to fly, as the first broods evidently 

 do. On the 3ist I caused! the eaves to be searched, but we found 

 in the nest only two callow, dead, stinking swifts, on which a 

 second nest had been formed. This double nest was full of the 

 black shining cases of the hippobosccz hirundinis. 



The following remarks on this unusual incident are obvious. 

 The first is, that though it may be disagreeable to swifts to 

 remain beyond the beginning of August, yet that they can subsist 

 longer is undeniable. The second is, that this uncommon event, 

 as it was owing to the loss of the first brood, so it corroborates 

 my former remark, that swifts breed regularly but once ; since, 

 was the contrary the case, the occurrence above could neither be 

 new nor rare. 



P.S. One swift was seen at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, 

 in 1782, so late as the 3rd September. 



