230 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



at work a house-martin, the first that had been seen this year, 

 came down the village in the sight of several people, and went 

 at once into a nest, where it stayed a short time, and then flew 

 over the houses ; for some days after no martins were observed, 

 not till the 16th of April, and then only a pair. Martins in 

 general were remarkably late this year. 



LETTER LII. To THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 



Selborne, Sept. 9, 1781. 



I HAVE just met with a circumstance respecting swifts, which 

 furnishes an exception to the whole tenour of my observations 

 ever since I have bestowed any attention on that species of 

 hirundines. Our swifts, in general, withdrew this year about 

 the first day of August, all save one pair, which in two or three 

 days was reduced to a single bird. The perseverance of this 

 individual made me suspect that the strongest of motives, that 

 of an attachment to her young, could alone occasion so late a 

 stay. I watched therefore till the twenty-fourth of August, and 

 then discovered that, under the eaves of the church, she attended 

 upon two young, which were fledged, and now put out their 

 white chins from a crevice. These remained till the twenty- 

 seventh, looking more alert every day, and seeming to long to 

 be on the wing. After this day they were missing at once ; nor 

 could I ever observe them with their dam coursing round the 

 church in the act of learning to fly, as the first broods evidently 

 do. On the thirty-first I caused the eaves to be searched, but 

 we found in the nest only two callow, dead, stinking swifts, on 

 which a second nest had been formed. This double nest was 

 full of the black shining cases of the hippobascce hirundinis. 



The following remarks on this unusual incident are obvious. 

 The first is, that though it may be disagreeable to swifts to 

 remain beyond the beginning of August, yet that they can sub- 

 sist longer is undeniable. The second is, that this uncommon 

 event, as it was owing to the loss of the first brood, so it corro- 

 borates my former remark, that swifts breed regularly but once ; 

 since, was the contrary the case, the occurrence above could 

 neither be new nor rare. 



P. S. One swift was seen at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, 

 in 1782, so late as the third of September. 



