OF SELBORNE. 265 



LETTER XIX. 



TO THE SAME. 

 DEAR sin, SELBORNE, Feb. 14, 1774. 



I RECEIVED your favour of the eighth, and am pleased 

 to find that you read my little history of the swallow 

 with your usual candour : nor was I the less pleased to 

 find that you made objections where you saw reason. 



As to the quotations, it is difficult to say precisely 

 which species of Hirundo Virgil might intend in the 

 lines in question, since the ancients did not attend to 

 specific differences like modern naturalists; yet some- 

 what may be gathered, enough to incline me to suppose 

 that in the two passages quoted, the poet had his eye 

 on the swallow. 



In the first place the epithet garrula suits the swal- 

 low well, who is a great songster ; and not the martin, 

 which is rather a mute bird ; and when it sings is so 



and, when hungry, slided itself along the perch towards its food, which it 

 seized with a sudden snap, and then returned to its place. On removing 

 it into a larger cage which was light on all sides, the only way to make 

 it sit on a high perch was to turn the ends of the perches to the light ; 

 and it appeared to want the common sense of other little birds in another 

 respect, that unless its pan of food was placed within convenient reach 

 of a perch on which it was disposed to sit, it would starve, and not move 

 from its perch to seek it. In a wild state it has the habit of taking its 

 food on the wing, and when it settles on a tree or rail, it remains there 

 for rest till it takes wing again, and has no habit of moving from twig to 

 twig, either in search of food or for recreation. Imprisonment, where it 

 has not space to take exercise on the wing, must therefore be very grievous 

 to it. The bird, which I had preserved through the winter, died in the 

 month of June, while I was absent from home. Its crippled state must 

 have added much to the unhealthiness of confinement without due exer- 

 cise. In a room large enough to admit of their flight, I make no doubt 

 that swallows might be very easily preserved through the winter, placing 

 their food conveniently by some perch on which they would willingly 

 alight. W. H. 



