OF SELBORNE. 155 



Birds in general are wise in their choice of situation : but 

 in this neighbourhood every summer is seen a strong proof to 

 the contrary at an house without eaves in an exposed district, 

 where some martins build year by year in the corners of the 

 windows. But, as the corners of these window! (which face 

 to the south-east and south-west) are too shallow, the nests 

 are washed down every hard rain; and yet these birds drudge 

 on to no purpose from summer to summer, without changing 

 their aspect or house. It is a piteous sight to see them 

 labouring when half their nest is washed away and bringing 



dirt "generis lapsi sarcire ruinas" Thus is instinct a 



most wonderful unequal faculty ; in some instances so much 

 above reason, in other respects so far below it ! Martins love 

 to frequent towns, especially if there are great lakes and 

 rivers at hand ; nay they even affect the close air of London. 

 And I have not only seen them nesting in the Borough, but 

 even in the Strand and Fleet-street; but then it was obvious 

 from the dinginess of their aspect that their feathers partook 

 of the filth of that sooty atmosphere. Martins are by far the 

 least agile of the four species; their wings and tails are short, 

 and therefore they are not capable of such surprising turns 

 and quick and glancing evolutions as the swallow. Accord- 

 ingly they make use of a placid easy motion in a middle 

 region of the air, seldom mounting to any great height, and 

 never sweeping long together over the surface of the ground 

 or water. They do not wander far for food, but affect shel- 

 tered districts, over some lake, or under some hanging wood, 

 or in some hollow vale, especially in windy weather. They 

 breed the latest of all the swallow kind: in 1772 they had 

 nestlings on to October the twenty-first, and are never without 

 unfledged young as late as Michaelmas. 



As the summer declines the congregating flocks increase in 

 numbers daily by the constant accession of the second broods; 

 till at last they swarm in myriads upon myriads round the 

 villages on the Thames, darkening the face of the sky as they 

 frequent the aits of that river, where they roost. They retire, 

 the bulk of them I mean, in vast flocks together about the 

 beginning of October: but have appeared of late years in a 



