

LETTER XXXIX. 



D 



To 



SELBORNE, My/ 13^, 1778. 

 EAR SIR, Among the many singularities 

 attending those amusing birds the swifts, I 

 am now confirmed in the opinion that we 

 have every year the same number of pairs 

 invariably ; at least the result of my inquiry 

 has been exactly the same for a long time 

 past. The swallows and martins are so 

 numerous, and so widely distributed over the village, that 

 it is hardly possible to recount them ; while the swifts, though 

 they do not all build in the church, yet so frequently haunt 

 it, and play and rendezvous round it, that they are easily 

 enumerated. The number that I constantly find are eight 

 pairs ; " about half of which reside in the church, and the 



