OF SELBORNE 233 



elegant lessons still tease my imagination, and recur 

 irresistibly to my recollection at seasons, and even when 

 I am desirous of thinking of more serious matters. 



I am, etc. 



LETTER LVII 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES HARRINGTON 



A RARE, and I think a new, little bird frequents my 

 garden, which I have great reason to think is the petti- 

 chaps : it is common in some parts of the kingdom ; and 

 I have received formerly several dead specimens from 

 Gibraltar. This bird much resembles the white-throat, 

 but has a more white or rather silvery breast and belly ; is 

 restless and active, like the willow-wrens, and hops from 

 bough to bough, examining every part for food ; it also 

 runs up the stems of the crown-imperials, and, putting its 

 head into the bells of those flowers, sips the liquor which 

 stands in the nectarium of each petal. Sometimes it feeds 

 on the ground, Hke the hedge-sparrow, by hopping about 

 on the grass-plots and mown walks. 



One of my neighbours, an intelligent and observing 

 man, informs me that, in the beginning of May, and 

 about ten minutes before eight o'clock in the evening, 

 he discovered a great cluster of house-swallows, thirty at 

 least he supposes, perching on a willow that hung over the 

 verge of James Knight's upper-pond. His attention was first 

 drawn by the twittering of these birds, which sat motionless 

 in a row on the bough, with their heads all one way, and, 

 by their weight, pressing down the twig so that it nearly 

 touched the water. In this situation he watched them till 

 he could see no longer. Repeated accounts of this sort, 

 spring and fall, induce us greatly to suspect that house- 

 swallows have some strong attachment to water, indepen- 

 dent of the matter of food ; and, though they may not 

 retire into that element, yet they may conceal themselves 



