SWIFTS. 255 



LETTER LXXXI. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, May 13, 1778. 

 DEAR SIR, 



AMONG the many singularities attending those 

 amusing birds, the swifts, I am now confirmed in the 

 opinion that we have every year the same number of 

 pairs invariably ; at least the result of my inquiry has 

 been exactly the same for a long time past. The 

 swallows and martins are so numerous, and so widely 

 distributed over the village, that it is hardly possible 

 to recount them ; while the swifts, though they do 

 not all build in the church, yet so frequently haunt it, 

 and play and rendezvous round it, that they are easily 

 enumerated. The number that I constantly find are 

 eight pairs, about half of which reside in the church, 

 and the rest build in some of the lowest and meanest 

 thatched cottages. Now, as these eight pairs allow- 

 ance being made for accidents breed yearly eight 

 pairs more, what becomes annually of this increase ? 

 and what determines, every spring, which pairs shall 

 visit us, and re-occupy their ancient haunts ? 



Ever since I have attended to the subject of orni- 

 thology, I have always supposed that the sudden 

 reverse of affection, that strange aVrtoropyrj, which 

 immediately succeeds in the feathered kind to the 

 most passionate fondness, is the occasion of an equal 

 dispersion of birds over the face of the earth. With- 

 out this provision, one favourite district would be 

 crowded with inhabitants, while others would be des- 

 titute and forsaken. But the parent birds seem to 

 maintain a jealous superiority, and to oblige the 



