356 The Natural History of Selborne 



discovered that, under the eaves of the church, she attended 

 upon two young, which were fledged, and now put out their 

 white chins from a crevice. These remained till the twenty- 

 seventh, looking more alert every day, and seeming to long to 

 be on the wing. After this day they were missing at once; 

 nor could I ever observe them with their dam coursing round 

 the church in the act of learning to fly, as the first broods 

 evidently do. On the thirty-first I caused the eaves to be 

 searched, but we found in the nest only two callow, dead, 

 stinking swifts, on which a second nest had been formed. 

 This double nest was full of the black shining cases of the 

 hippoboscce hirundinis. 



The following remarks on this unusual incident are obvious. 

 The first is, that though it may be disagreeable to swifts to 

 remain beyond the beginning of August, yet that they can 

 subsist longer is undeniable. The second is, that this un- 

 common event, as it was owing to the loss of the first brood, 

 so it corroborates my former remark, that swifts breed regularly 

 but once; since, was the contrary the case, the occurrence 

 above could neither be new nor rare. 



P.S. One swift was seen at Lyndon, in the country of 

 Rutland, in 1782, so late as the third of September. 



