OF SELBORNE 155 



there are no banks or bold shores in that neighbourhood : 

 perhaps they nestle in the scaffold holes of some old or new 

 deserted building. They dip and wash as they fly some- 

 times, like the house-martin and swallow. 



Sand-martins differ from their congeners in the diminu- 

 tiveness of their size, and in their colour, which is what is 

 usually called a mouse-colour. Near Valencia in Spain, 

 they are taken, says Willughby, and sold in the markets 

 for the table ; and are called by the country people, prob- 

 ably from their desultory jerking manner of flight, Papilion 

 de Montagna. 



LETTER XXI 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES HARRINGTON 



Selborne, Sept. 28, 1774. 



DEAR SIR, 



As the swift or black-martin is the largest of the British 

 hirundines, so is it undoubtedly the latest comer. For I 

 remember but one instance of its appearing before the last 

 week in April : and in some of our late frosty, harsh 

 springs, it has not been seen till the beginning of May. 

 This species usually arrives in pairs. 



The swift, like the sand-martin, is very defective in 

 architecture, making no crust, or shell, for its nest ; but 

 forming it of dry grasses and feathers, very rudely and 

 inartificially put together. With all my attention to these 

 birds, I have never been able once to discover one in the 

 act of collecting or carrying in materials : so that I have 

 suspected (since their nests are exactly the same) that they 

 sometimes usurp upon the house-sparrows, and expel them, 

 as sparrows do the house and sand-martin ; well remem- 

 bering that I have seen them squabbling together at the 

 entrance of their holes ; and the sparrows up in arms, and 

 much disconcerted at these intruders. And yet I am 

 assured, by a nice observer in such matters, that they do 



