SWIFTS. 177 



the nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest ; but so strongly 

 was she affected by natural aropyr) for her brood, which she sup- 

 posed to be in danger, that, regardless of her own safety, she 

 would not stir, but lay sullenly by them, permitting herself to be 

 taken in hand. The squab young we brought down and placed 

 on the grass-plot, where they tumbled about, and were as help- 

 less as a new-born child. While we contemplated their naked 

 bodies, their unwieldy disproportioned abdomina, and their 

 heads, too heavy for their necks to support, we could not but 

 wonder when we reflected that these shiftless beings in a little 

 more than a fortnight would be able to dash through the air 

 almost with the inconceivable swiftness of a meteor; and perhaps, 

 in their emigration, must traverse vast continents and oceans as 

 distant as the equator. So soon does nature advance small birds 

 to their //XtKia, or state of perfection; while the progressive 

 growth of men and large quadrupeds is slow and tedious ! 



I am, &c. 



LETTER XXII. To THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 



DEAR SIR, Selborne, Sept. 13, 1774. 



BY means of a straight cottage-chimney I had an opportunity 

 this summer of remarking, at my leisure, how swallows ascend 

 and descend through the shaft; but my pleasure, in contem- 

 plating the address with which this feat was performed to a con- 

 siderable depth in the chimney, was somewhat interrupted by 

 apprehensions lest my eyes might undergo the same fate with 

 those of Tobit.* 



Perhaps it may be some amusement to you to hear at what 

 times the different species of hirundines arrived this spring in 

 three very distant counties of this kingdom. With us the swal- 

 low was seen first on April the 4th, the swift on April the 24th, 

 the bank-martin on April the 12th, and the house-martin not 

 till April the 30th. At South Zele, Devonshire, swallows did not 

 arrive till April the 25th ; swifts, in plenty, on May the 1st; 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 1st. Do these different dates, in 

 such distant districts, prove any thing for or against migration r 



* Tobit ii. 10. 



. N 



