OF SELBORNE. 101) 



holes are forsaken and new ones bored ; perhaps because the 

 old habitations grow foul and fetid from long use, or because 

 they may so abound with fleas as to become untenantable. 

 This species of swallow moreover is strangely annoyed with 

 fleas : and we have seen fleas, bed-fleas (pulex irritans), 

 swarming at the mouths of these holes, like bees upon the 

 stools of their hives *. 



The following circumstance should by no means be omitted 

 that these birds do not make use of their caverns by way 

 of hybernacula, as might be expected ; since banks so per- 

 forated have been dug out with care in the winter, when 

 nothing was found but empty nests. 



The sand-martin arrives much about the same time with 

 the swallow, and lays, as she does, from four to six white 

 eggs. But as this species is cryptogame, carrying on the 

 business of nidincation, incubation, and the support of it's 

 young in the dark, it would not be so easy to ascertain the 

 time of breeding, were it not for the coming forth of the 

 broods, which appear much about the time, or rather some- 

 what earlier than those of the swallow. The nestlings are 

 supported in common like those of their congeners, with gnats 

 and other small insects ; and sometimes they are fed with 

 libellulce (dragon-flies) almost as long as themselves. In the 

 last week in June we have seen a row of these sitting on a 

 rail near a great pool as perchers ; and so young and helpless, 

 as easily to be taken by hand : but whether the dams ever 

 feed them on the wing, as swallows and house-martins do, we 

 have never yet been able to determine ; nor do we know 

 whether they pursue and attack birds of prey. 



AVI ion they happen to breed near hedges and enclosures, 

 they are dispossessed of their breeding holes by the house- 

 sparrow, which is on the same account a fell adversary to 

 house-martins. 



These hirundines are no songsters, but rather mute, making 



* [Not only is the flea of the sand-martin of a different species from 

 the bed-flea, but it was placed by Mr. Curtis in a different genus " Cera- 

 fajthythis." It is also distinct from the flea which infests the swallow, 

 Pulex hirundinis.T. B.] 



