NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 25 



LETTER X 



August 4tb, 1767. 



IT has been my misfortune never to have had any neigh- 

 bors whose studies have led them towards the pursuit of nat- 

 ural knowledge ; so that, for want of a companion to quicken 

 my industry and sharpen my attention, I have made but slen- 

 der progress in a kind of information to which I have been 

 attached from my childhood. 



As to swallows (Jiinindines rustics) being found in a torpid 

 state during the winter in the Isle of Wight or any other part 

 of this county, I never heard any such account worth attend- 

 ing to. But a clergyman, of an inquisitive turn, assures me, that 

 when he was a great boy, some workmen, in pulling down the 

 battlements of a church tower early in the spring, found two 

 or three swifts (hirimdines apodes) among the rubbish, which 

 were at first appearance dead, but on being carried towards 

 the fire revived. He told me, that out of his great care to pre- 

 serve them, he put them in a paper bag, and hung them by 

 the kitchen fire, where they were suffocated. 



Another intelligent person has informed me, that while he 

 was a schoolboy at Brighthelmstone, in Sussex, a great frag- 

 ment of the chalk cliff fell down one stormy winter on the 

 beach, and that many people found swallows among the rub- 

 bish ; but on my questioning him whether he saw any of those 

 birds himself, to my no small disappointment, he answered me 

 in the negative ; but that others assured him they did. 



Young broods of swallows began to appear this year on 

 July I ith, and young martins (hirimdines urbica) were then 

 fledged in their nests. Both species will breed again once. 

 For I see by my fauna of last year, that young broods came 

 forth so late as September i8th. Are not these late hatchings 

 more in favor of hiding than migration ? Nay, some young 

 martins remained in their nests last year so late as Septem- 

 ber 2Qth ; and yet they totally disappeared with us by the 5th 

 October. 



How strange it is that the swift, which seems to live exactly 

 the same life with the swallow and house-martin, should leave 

 us before the middle of August invariably ! while the latter 



