164 NATURAL HISTORY 



The house swallow washes by dropping into the 

 water as it flies: this species appears commonly about 

 a week before the house martin, and about ten or twelve 

 days before the swift. 



In 1772 there were young house martins 13 in their 

 nest till October the 23d. 



The swift 14 appears about ten or twelve days later 

 than the house swallow : viz. about the 24th or 26th of 

 April. 



Whin chats and stone chats 15 stay with us the whole 

 year 16 . 



The swallow hither comes to rest 

 His sable wing, and snowy breast." 



And alluding to this custom, Avienus (who may be considered only as 

 a very bad translator of an excellent poem, the Periegesis of Dionysius), 

 thus says, v. 705. 



" Nam cum vere novo, tellus se dura relaxat 

 Culminibusque cavis, blandum strepit ales hirundo 

 Gens devota choros agitat!" 



From a passage in the " Birds" of Aristophanes, we learn that among 

 the Greeks, the crane pointed out the time of sowing ; the arrival of the 

 kite, the time of sheep-shearing ; and of the swallow, the time to put on 

 summer clothes. According to the Greek calendar of Flora, kept by 

 Theophrastus at Athens, the Ornithian winds blow, and the swallow 

 comes, between the 28th of February and the 12th of March : the kite 

 and nightingale appear between the llth and 26th of March : the cuckoo 

 appears at the same time the young figs come out, thence his name. See 

 Stillingfleet's Tracts on Natural History, p. 324. MITFORD. 



13 British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 244. ' p. 245. " p. 271, 272. 



18 A few whin chats and stone chats may remain the whole year in warm 

 situations, but the greater number certainly leave the country, nor does 

 the whin chat return to us early. It is very much more tender of cold than 

 the nightingale, and requires a much higher temperature to keep it alive. 

 It is very abundant in the neighbourhood of Spofforth, where it is called 

 the grass chat, and breeds in almost every meadow and rough pasture. 

 I saw one last year at the beginning of November, the weather having 

 been unusually warm; but excepting an accidental straggler, they quit 

 us entirely at the very beginning of September. The stone chats return 

 to this neighbourhood about the middle of March. I have observed a 

 stone chat two successive years on the 14th and 16th, the weather being 

 frosty, in the hedge on the road side in the cultivated country, their usual 



