SWIFTS. 



LETTER LXI. 



I 



TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, September 28, 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 ap- 

 pearing 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 remembering 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. 



Swifts, like sand-martins, carry on the business of 

 nidification quite in the dark, in crannies of castles, 

 and towers, and steeples, and upon the tops of the 

 walls of churches, under the roof, and therefore can- 



