LVI1.] OF SELBORNE. 155 



bird of this sort came within my observation. I only saw a 

 few larks and whinchats, some rooks, and several kites and 

 buzzards. 



About summer a flight of crossbills comes to the pine-groves 

 about this house, but never makes any long stay. 



The old tortoise, that I have mentioned in a former letter, 

 still continues in this garden ; and retired under ground about 

 the 20th of November, and came out again for one day on 

 the 30th : it lies now buried in a wet swampy border under 

 a wall facing to the south, and is enveloped at present in mud 

 and mire ! 



Here is a large rookery round this house, the inhabitants of 

 which seem to get their livelihood very easily ; for they spend 

 the greatest part of the day on their nest-trees when the weather 

 is mild. These rooks retire every evening all the winter from 

 this rookery, where they only call by the way, as they are going 

 to roost in deep woods : at the dawn of day they always revisit 

 their nest-trees, and are preceded a few minutes by a flight of 

 daws, that act, as it were, as their harbingers. 



RINGMER, near LEWES, Dec. 9, 1773. 



LETTER LVII. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 



THE house-swallow, 1 or chimney-swallow, is undoubtedly the 

 first comer of all the British liirundines ; and appears in general 

 on or about the 13th of April, as I have remarked from 

 many years' observation. Not but now and then a straggler is 

 seen much earlier : and, in particular, when I was a boy I ob- 

 served a swallow for a whole day together on a sunny warm 

 Shrove Tuesday ; which day could not fall out later than the 

 middle of March, and often happened early in February. 



1 Chimney-swallow, Hirundo rustica, Linnaeus. 



