OF SELBORNE 67 



nondescript in England, and what I have never been able 

 yet to procure) retires or migrates very early in the 

 summer : it also ranges very high for its food, feeding in 

 a different region of the air ; and that is the reason I never 

 could procure one. Now this is exactly the case with the 

 swifts ; for they take their food in a more exalted region 

 than the other species, and are very seldom seen hawking 

 for flies near the ground, or over the surface of the water. 

 From hence I would conclude that these liirundines, and 

 the larger bats, are supported by some sorts of high-flying 

 gnats, scarabs, or phalaenae, that are of short continuance ; 

 and that the short stay of these strangers is regulated by 

 the defect of their food. 



By my journal it appears that curlews clamoured on to 

 October the thirty-first ; since which I have not seen or 

 heard any. Swallows were observed on to November the 

 third. 



LETTER XXVII 

 TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 



Selborne, Feb. 22, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, 



HEDGE-HOGS abound in my gardens and fields. The 

 manner in which they eat their roots of the plantain in my 

 grass-walks is very curious : with their upper mandible, 

 which is much longer than their lower, they bore under the 

 plant, and so eat the root off upwards, leaving the tuft of 

 leaves untouched. In this respect they are serviceable, as 

 they destroy a very troublesome weed ; but they deface the 

 walks in some measure by digging little round holes. It 

 appears, by the dung that they drop upon the turf, that 

 beetles are no inconsiderable part of their food. In June last 

 I procured a litter of four or five young hedge-hogs, which 

 appeared to be about five or six days old ; they, I find, 

 like puppies, are born blind, and could not see when they 



