The Natural History of Selborne 257 



still haunts the same unlikely roofs a good proof this that 

 the 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 the 5th of July, 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 a natural a-ropyr] for her brood, 

 which she supposed to be in danger, that, regardless of her 

 own safety, she would not stir, but lay sullenly by them, per- 

 mitting 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 dis- 

 tant as the equator. So soon does Nature advance small 

 birds to their ^Ai/a'a or state of perfection ; while the pro- 

 gressive growth of men and large quadrupeds is slow and 

 tedious. I am, &c. 



