EETUEN OF SWALLOWS. 197 



LETTEE LXII. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, Sept. 1774. 



DEAR SIR, By means of a straight cottage chimney, I had 

 an opportunity this summer of remarking, at my lei sure, how 

 swallows ascend and descend through the shaft ; but my 

 pleasure in contemplating the address with which this feat 

 was performed, to a considerable depth in the chimney, was 

 somewhat interrupted by apprehensions lest my eyes might 

 undergo the same fate with those of Tobit.* 



Perhaps it may be some amusement to you to hear at what 

 times the different species of hirundines arrived this spring 

 in three very distant counties of this kingdom. With us, 

 the swallow was seen first on April the 4th ; the swift on 

 April the 24th ; the bank-martin on April the 12th ; and 

 the house-martin not till April the 30th. At South Zele, 

 Devonshire, swallows did not arrive till April the 25th; 

 swifts, in plenty, on May the 1st ; and house-martins not 

 till the middle of May. At Blackburn, in Lancashire, 

 swifts were seen April the 28th ; swallows, April the 29th ; 

 house-martins, May the 1st. Do these different dates, in 

 such distant districts, prove anything for or against migra- 

 tion ? 



A farmer near Weyhill fallows his land with two teams of 

 asses, one of which works till noon, and the other in the 

 afternoon. When these animals have done their work, they 

 are penned all night, like sheep, on the fallow. In the 

 winter, they are confined and foddered in the yard, and make 

 plenty of dung. 



Linnaeus says, that hawks " paciscuntur inducias cum 

 ambus, quamdiu cuculus cuculat ;" but it appears to me that, 

 during that period, many little birds are taken and destroyed 

 by birds of prey, as may be seen by their feathers left in 

 lanes and under hedges. 



* Tobit, ii. 10. 



