148 SWALLOWS. 



between the eyes into the upper mandible, have a more 

 delicate feeling in their beaks than other round-billed birds, 

 and can grope for their meat when out of sight. Perhaps, 

 then, their associates attend them on the motive of interest, 

 as greyhounds wait on the motions of their finders, and as 

 lions are said to do on the yelpings of jackals. Lapwings 

 and starlings sometimes associate. 



LETTER XLIX. 



TO THE SAME. 



March 9, 1772. 



DEAR SIR, As a gentleman and myself were walking, on 

 the 4th of last November, round the sea-banks at Newhaven, 

 near the mouth of the Lewes river, in pursuit of natural 

 knowledge, we were surprised to see three house swallows 

 gliding very swiftly by us. That morning was rather chilly, 

 with the wind at north-west ; but the tenor of the weather 

 for some time before had been delicate, and the noons 

 remarkably warm. From this incident, and from repeated 

 accounts which I meet with, I am more and more induced to 

 believe that many of the swallow kind do not depart from 

 this island, but lay themselves up in holes and caverns, and 

 do, insect-like and bat-like, come forth at mild times, and 

 then retire again to their latebrcB, or lurking-places. Nor 

 make I the least doubt but that, if I lived at Newhaven, 

 Seaford, Brighthelmstone,* or any of those towns near the 

 chalk cliffs of the Sussex coast, by proper observations, I 

 should see swallows stirring at periods of the winter, when 

 the noons were soft and inviting, and the sun warm and 

 invigorating. And I am the more of this opinion, from what 

 I have remarked during some of our late springs, and though 

 some swallows did make their appearance about the usual 



* Much as I have resided in Brighton, and many as my inquiries have heen, 

 I have never heard of or seen swallows at any unusual periods in that neigh- 

 bourhood. ED, 



