LXII.] OF SELBORNE. 177 



LETTEE LXII. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 



As the swift or black martin is the largest of the British 

 liirundines, so is it undoubtedly the latest comer. For I remember 

 but one instance of its appearing before the last week in April ; 

 and in some of oiir late frosty, harsh springs, it has not been 

 seen till the beginning of May. This species usually arrives in 

 pairs. 



The swift, like the sand-martin, is very defective in architec- 

 ture, making no crust, or shell, for its nest ; but forming it of dry 

 grasses and feathers, very rudely and inartificially put together. 

 With all my attention to these birds, I have never been 

 able once to discover one in the act of collecting or carrying in 

 materials : so that I have suspected (since their nests are exactly 

 the same) that they sometimes usurp upon the house-sparrows, 

 and expel them, as sparrows do the house and sand-martin ; 

 well remembering that I have seen them squabbling together at 

 the entrance of their holes ; and the sparrows up in arms, and 

 much disconcerted at these intruders. And yet I am assured by 

 a nice observer in such matters, that they do collect feathers for 

 their nests in Andalusia ; and that he has shot them with such 

 materials in their mouths. 



Swifts, like sand-martins, carry on the business of nidification 

 quite in the dark, in crannies of castles, and towers, and steeples, 

 and upon the tops of the walls of churches under the roof ; and 

 therefore cannot be so narrowly watched as those species that 

 build more openly ; but, from what I could ever observe, they 

 begin nesting about the middle of May ; and I have remarked, 

 from eggs taken, that they have sat hard by the 9th of June. 

 In general they haunt tall buildings, churches, and steeples, and 

 breed only in such : yet in this village some pairs frequent the 

 lowest and meanest cottages, and educate their young under 

 those thatched roofs. I remember but one instance where they 



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