NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 219 



imagination, and recur irresistibly to my recollection at seasons, 

 and even when I am desirous of thinking of more serious 

 matters. 



I am, etc. 



LETTER LVII 



A RARE, and I think a new, little bird frequents my gar- 

 den, which I have great reason to think is the pettichaps : it 

 is common in some parts of the kingdom ; and I have received 

 formerly several dead specimens from Gibraltar. This bird 

 much resembles the whitethroat, but has a more white, or rather 

 silvery breast and belly; is restless and active, like the willow- 

 wrens, and hops from bough to bough, examining every part 

 for food ; it also runs up the stems of the crown-imperials, and, 

 putting its head into the bells of those flowers, sips the liquor 

 which stands in the nectarium of each petal. Sometimes it 

 feeds on the ground like the hedge-sparrow, by hopping about 

 on the grass-plots and mown walks. 1 



One of my neighbors, an intelligent and observing man, 

 informs me that, in the beginning of May and about ten min- 

 utes before eight o'clock in the evening, he discovered a great 

 cluster of house-swallows, thirty, at least, he supposes, perch- 

 ing on a willow that hung over the verge of James Knight's 

 upper pond. His attention was first drawn by the twittering 

 of these birds, which sat motionless in a row on the bough, 

 with their heads all one way, and, by their weight, pressing 

 down the twig so that it nearly touched the water. In this 

 situation he watched them till he could see no longer. Re- 

 peated accounts of this sort, spring and fall, induce us greatly 

 to suspect that house-swallows have some strong attachment 

 to water, independent of the matter of food ; and, though they 

 may not retire into that element, yet they may conceal them- 

 selves in the banks of pools and rivers during the uncomfort- 

 able months of winter. 



One of the keepers of Wolmer Forest sent me a peregrine- 

 falcon, which he shot on the verge of that district as it was 

 devouring a wood-pigeon. The falco peregrinu s, or haggard- 

 falcon, is a noble species of hawk seldom seen in the southern 



