182 SAKD-MAHTIKS. 



"We have had a very wet autumn and winter, so as to 

 raise the springs to a pitch beyond anything since 1764, 

 which was a remarkable year for floods and high waters. 

 The land-springs, which we call levants, break out much on 

 the downs of Sussex, Hampshire, and "Wiltshire. The country 

 people say, when the levants rise, corn will always be dear ; 

 meaning, that when the earth is so glutted with water as to 

 send forth springs on the downs and uplands, that the corn 

 vales must be drowned : and so it has proved for these ten 

 or eleven years past : for land-springs have never obtained 

 more since the memory of man than during that period, nor 

 has there been known a greater scarcity of all sorts of grain, 

 considering the great improvements of modern husbandry. 

 Such a run of wet seasons, a century or two ago, would, I 

 am persuaded, have occasioned a famine. Therefore, pam- 

 phlets and newspaper letters that talk of combinations, tend 

 to inflame and mislead, since we must not expect plenty till 

 Providence sends us more favourable seasons. 



The wheat of last year, all round this district, and in the 

 county of Rutland, and elsewhere, yields remarkably bad; 

 and our wheat on the ground, by the continual late sudden 

 vicissitudes from fierce frost to pouring rains, looks poorly, 

 and the turnips rot very fast. 



LETTER LIX. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, February 26, 1774. 



DEAR SIB, The sand-martin, or bank-martin, is by much 

 the least of any of the British hir undines, and, as far as we 

 have ever seen, the smallest known hirundo ; though Brisson 

 asserts that there is one much smaller, and that is the Jiirundo 

 esculenta. 



But it is much to be regretted that it is scarce possible for 

 any observer to be so full and exact as he could wish in 

 reciting the circumstances attending the life and conversa- 



