OF SELBORNE. 283 



chimney, was somewhat interrupted by apprehensions 

 lest my eyes might undergo the same fate with those of 

 Tobit 1 . 



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 king- 

 dom. With us the swallow 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 

 Blackburne, 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 ? 



A farmer, near Weyhill, fallows his land with two 

 teams of asses ; one of which works till noon, and the 

 other in the afternoon. When these animals have done 

 their work, they are penned all niglit, like sheep, on the 

 fallow. In the winter they are confined and foddered in 

 a yard, and make plenty of dung. 



Linnaeus says, that hawks " paciscuntur inducias cum 

 j quamdiu cuculus cuculat :" but it appears to me 



more days to remain in England, and I feared they would depart without 

 my nursling. I had carried it through two or three rooms lying on the 

 palm of my hand, and had just passed the threshold of the house door, 

 and was in the act of stroking its head with my fingers, when, upon the 

 swifts screaming in the air, it suddenly sprang out of my hand and flew 

 low round the carriage drive, as it had been accustomed to fly round the 

 room ; and, passing over my head as it came round, it rose high in the air 

 to join the wild swifts, and was never seen by us again. Three days after, 

 the swifts had all departed ; and I make little doubt that in less than a 

 week after its vain attempts to surmount Johnson's Dictionary, my young 

 friend was flying sky high in the heart of Africa. I know nothing more 

 marvellous, than such an abrupt transition from a state of the most imbe- 

 cile helplessness and sloth, to such etherial activity. 



A solitary swift was seen by me flying high near the church tower on 

 the 21st of August, being near a fortnight after the general migration. 

 This might have been the bird which I had brought up. W. H. 



> Tobit, ii. 10. 



