210 WHITE 



where it stayed a short time, and then flew over the houses ; 

 for some days after no martins were observed, not till the 

 i6th April, and then only a pair. Martins in general were 

 remarkably late this year. 



LETTER LII 



SELBORNE, Sept. $t/i, 1781. 



I HAVE just met with a circumstance respecting swifts, 

 which furnishes an exception to the whole tenor of my 

 observations ever since I have bestowed any attention on that 

 species of hirundines. Our swifts, in general, withdrew this 

 year about the first day of August, all save one pair, which 

 in two or three days was reduced to a single bird. The 

 perseverance of this individual made me suspect that the 

 strongest of motives, that of an attachment to her young, could 

 alone occasion so late a stay. I watched therefore till the 

 24th August, and then discovered that, under the eaves of 

 the church, she attended upon two young, which were fledged, 

 and now put out their white chins from a crevice. These 

 remained till the 2/th, looking more alert every day, and 

 seeming to long to be on the wing. After this day they 

 were missing at once; nor could I ever observe them with 

 their dam coursing round the church in the act of learning to 

 fly, as the first broods evidently do. On the 3ist I caused 

 the eaves to be searched, but we found in the nest only two 

 callow, dead, stinking swifts, on which a second nest had been 

 formed. This double nest was full of the black shining cases 

 of the hippoboscce kirundinis. 



The following remarks on this unusual incident are obvious. 

 The first is, that though it may be disagreeable to swifts to 

 remain beyond the beginning of August, yet that they can 

 subsist longer is undeniable. The second is, that this un- 

 common event, as it was owing to the loss of the first brood, 

 so it corroborates my former remark, that swifts breed 

 regularly but once; since, was the contrary the case, the 

 occurrence above could neither be new nor rare. 



