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it stayed a short time, and then flew over the houses ; for 

 some days after no martins were observed, not till the 

 1 6th of April, and then only a pair. Martins in general 

 were remarkably late this year. 



LETTER LII 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



Selborne, Sept. 9, 178 1. 



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, with- 

 drew 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 twenty-fourth of 

 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 twenty-seventh, 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 thirty-first 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 hippoboscae 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 



