250 The Natural History of Selborne 



on April the i2th, and the house-martin not till April the 3Oth. At 

 South Zele, Devonshire, swallows did not arrive till April the 25th, 

 swifts in plenty on May the ist, and house-martins not till the 

 middle of May. At Blackburn, in Lancashire, swifts were seen 

 April the 28th, swallows April the 29th, house-martins May the ist. 

 Do these different dates, in such distant districts, prove anything 

 for or against migration ? 



A farmer, near Weyhill, fallows his land with two teams of asses ; 

 one of which works till noon, and the other in the afternoon. 

 When these animals have done their work, they are penned all 

 night, like sheep, on the fallow. In the winter they are confined 

 and foddered in a yard, and make plenty of dung. 



Linnaeus says that hawks " paciscuntur inducias cum avibus y 

 quamdiu cue ulus cue ulat ; " but it appears to me, that during that 

 period, many little birds are taken and destroyed by birds of prey, 

 as may be seen by their feathers left in lanes and under hedges. 



The missel-thrush is, while breeding, fierce and pugnacious, 

 driving such birds as approach its nest with great fury to a distance. 

 The Welsh call it " pen y llwyn," the head or master of the coppice. 

 He suffers no magpie, jay, or blackbird, to enter the garden where 

 he haunts ; and is, for the time, a good guard to the new-sown 

 legumens. In general, he is very successful in the defence of his 

 family; but once I observed in my garden that several magpies 

 came determined to storm the nest of a missel-thrush : the dams 

 defended their mansion with great vigour, and fought resolutely pro 

 aris et focis ; but numbers at last prevailed, they tore the nest to 

 pieces, and swallowed the young alive. 



In the season of nidification the wildest birds are comparatively 

 tame. Thus the ring-dove breeds in my fields, though they are 

 continually frequented : and the missel-thrush, though most shy and 

 wild in the autumn and winter, builds in my garden close to a walk 

 where people are passing all day long. 



Wall-fruit abounds with me this year ; but my grapes, that used 

 to be forward and good, are at present backward beyond all prece- 

 dent : and this is not the worst of the story ; for the same ungenial 

 weather, the same black cold solstice, has injured the more necessary 



