T'/ie Natural History of Selborne 259 



martin not till April the 3oth. At South Zele, Devonshire, 

 swallows did not arrive till April the 25th, swifts in plenty on 

 May the ist, and house-martins not till the middle of May. 

 At Blackburn, in Lancashire, swifts were seen April the 28th, 

 swallows April the 2gth, house-martins May the ist. Do these 

 different dates, in such distant districts, prove anything for or 

 against migration ? 



A farmer, near Weyhill, fallows his land with two teams of 

 asses ; one of which works till noon, and the other in the 

 afternoon. When these animals have done their work, they 

 are penned all night, like sheep, on the fallow. In the winter 

 they are confined and foddered in a yard, and make plenty of 

 dung. 



Linnseus says that hawks " paciscuntur indudas cum avtbus, 

 quamdiu cuculus cuculat ; " but it appears to me, that during 

 that period, many little birds are taken and destroyed by birds 

 of prey, as may be seen by their feathers left in lanes and 

 under hedges. 



The missel-thrush is, while breeding, fierce and pugnacious, 

 driving such birds as approach its nest with great fury to a 

 distance. The Welsh call it " pen y llwyn," the head or 

 master of the coppice. He suffers no magpie, jay, or black- 

 bird, to enter the garden where he haunts ; and is, for the time, 

 a good guard to the new-sown legumens. In general, he is 

 very successful in the defence of his family; but once I 

 observed in my garden that several magpies came determined 

 to storm the nest of a missel-thrush : the dams defended their 

 mansion with great vigour, and fought resolutely pro arts et 

 focis; but numbers at last prevailed, they tore the nest to 

 pieces, and swallowed the young alive. 



In the season of nidification the wildest birds are compara- 

 tively tame. Thus the ring-dove breeds in my fields, though 

 they are continually frequented : and the missel-thrush, 

 though most shy and wild in the autumn and winter, builds 

 in my garden close to a walk where people are passing all 

 day long. 



Wall-fruit abounds with me this year ; but my grapes, that 



