124 The Natural History of Selborne 



short-winged summer birds of passage are to be seen spring and 

 autumn on the very skirts of Europe ; it is a presumptive proof of 

 their emigrations. 



Scopoli seems to me to have found the Hirundo melba, the great 

 Gibraltar swift, in Tirol, without knowing it. For what is his 

 Hirundo alpina but the afore-mentioned bird in other words ? Says 

 he " Omnia prioris " (meaning the swift) ; " sed pectus album ; paulo 

 major priore" I do not suppose this to be a new species. It is true 

 also of the melba, that " nidificat in excelsis Alpium rupibus" Vide 

 Annum Trtmum. 1 



My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good sense, but no 

 naturalist, to whom I applied on account of the stone-curlew, cedic- 

 nemus, sends me the following account : "In looking over my 

 Naturalist's Journal for the month of April, I find the stone-curlews 

 are first mentioned on the seventeenth and eighteenth, which date 

 seems to me rather late. They live with us all the spring and 

 summer, and at the beginning of autumn prepare to take leave by 

 getting together in flocks. They seem to me a bird of passage that 

 may travel into some dry hilly country south of us, probably Spain, 

 because of the abundance of sheep-walks in that country; for they 

 spend their summers with us in such districts. This conjecture I 

 hazard, as I have never met with any one that has seen them in 

 England in the winter. I believe they are not fond of going near 

 the water, but feed on earth-worms, that are common on sheep-walks 

 and downs. They breed on fallows and lay-fields abounding with 

 grey mossy flints, which much resemble their young in colour ; among 

 which they skulk and conceal themselves. They make no nest, but 

 lay their eggs on the bare ground, producing in common but two at a 

 time. There is reason to think their young run soon after they are 

 hatched ; and that the old ones do not feed them, but only lead them 

 about at the time of feeding, which, for the most part, is in the 

 night." Thus far, my friend. 



In the manners of this bird you see there is something very 



1 This is the Cypse/us melba, sent to Linnaeus by John White from Gibraltar. 

 It is now known that swifts are not swallows, nor related to the swallow, the resem- 

 blance between the two being merely external and due to similarity of habit. ED. 



