LETTER XXXVIII. 



'To the same. 



SELBORNE, March \$th, 1773. 



EAR SIR, By my journal for last autumn it 

 appears that the house-martins bred very late, and 

 stayed very late in these parts ; for, on the first of 

 October, I saw young martins in their nest nearly 

 fledged; and again on the twenty-first of October, 

 we had at the next house a nest full of young 

 martins just ready to fly ; and the old ones were 

 hawking for insects with great alertness. The next morning the 

 brood forsook their nest, and were flying round the village. From 

 this day I never saw one of the swallow kind till November the third ; 

 when twenty, or perhaps thirty, house-martins were playing all 

 day long by the side of the hanging wood, and over my field. Did 

 these small weak birds, some of which were nestling twelve days 

 ago, shift their quarters at this late season of the year to the other 

 side of the northern tropic ? Or rather, is it not more probable 



