LETTER XXXVIII. 



To the same. 



SELBORNE, March 15^, 1773. 

 EAR SIR, By my journal for last autumn it 

 appears that the house-martins bred very 

 late, and stayed very late in these parts ; for, 

 on the first of October, I saw young martins 

 in their nest nearly fledged; and again on 

 the twenty-first of October, we had at the 

 next house a nest full of young martins just 

 ready to fly ; and the old ones were hawking for insects with 

 great alertness. The next morning the brood forsook their 

 nest, and were flying round the village. From this day I 

 never saw one of the swallow kind till November the third ; 

 when twenty, or perhaps thirty, house-martins were playing all 

 day long by the side of the hanging wood, and over my field. 

 Did these small weak birds, some of which were nestling 

 twelve days ago, shift their quarters at this late season of the 

 year to the other side of the northern tropic ? Or rather, is 

 it not more probable that the next church, ruin, chalk-cliff, 

 steep covert, or perhaps sand bank, lake or pool (as a more 



