LETTER LI. 



To the same. 



SELBORNE, Sept. $rJ, 1781. 



HAVE now read your Miscellanies through with 

 much care and satisfaction ; and am to return 

 you my best thanks for the honourable mention 

 made in them of me as a naturalist, which I wish 

 I may deserve. 



In some former letters I expressed my sus- 

 picions that many of the house-martins do not 

 depart in the winter far from this village. I therefore determined 

 to make some search about the south-east end of the hill, where I 

 imagined they might slumber out the uncomfortable months of 

 winter. But supposing that the examination would be made to the 

 best advantage in the spring, and observing that no martins had 

 appeared by the nth of April last ; on that day I employed some 



