NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 153 



same birds return to the same spots. As they must stoop 

 very low to get up under these humble eaves, cats lie in wait, 

 and sometimes catch them on the wing. 



On July 5th, 1775, I again untiled part of a roof over the 

 nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest ; but so strongly was 

 she affected by natural a-ropjij for her brood, which she sup- 

 posed to be in danger, that, regardless of her own safety, she 

 would not stir, but lay sullenly by them, permitting herself to 

 be taken in hand. The squab young we brought down and 

 placed on the grass-plot, where they tumbled about, and were 

 as helpless as a new-born child. While we contemplated their 

 naked bodies, their unwieldy disproportioned abdomina, and 

 their heads, too heavy for their necks to support, we could not 

 but wonder when we reflected that these shiftless beings in a 

 little more than a fortnight would be able to dash through the 

 air almost with the inconceivable swiftness of a meteor ; and 

 perhaps in their emigration must traverse vast continents and 

 oceans as distant as the equator. So soon does nature advance 

 small birds to their fi\iica t or state of perfection; while the 

 progressive growth of men and large quadrupeds is slow and 



tedious ! I am, etc. 



NOTE 



1 John Antony Scopoli, M.D., of Carniola. G. W. 



LETTER XXII 



SELBORNE, Sept. lyh, 1774. 



DEAR SIR, By means of a straight cottage chimney I had 

 an opportunity this summer of remarking, at my leisure, how 

 swallows ascend and descend through the shaft; but my 

 pleasure in contemplating the address with which this feat 

 was performed to a considerable depth in the chimney was 

 somewhat interrupted by apprehensions lest my eyes might 

 undergo the same fate with those of Tobit. 1 



Perhaps it may be some amusement to you to hear at what 

 times the different species of hirundines arrived this spring 

 in three very distant counties of this kingdom. With us the 



