1 68 NA TURAL HIS TOR Y OF SELBORNE. 



This species feeds much on little Coleoptera, as well as on gnats 

 and flies ; and often settles on dug ground, or paths, for gravels to 

 grind and digest its food. Before they depart, for some weeks, to 

 a bird, they forsake houses and chimneys, and roost in trees ; and 

 usually withdraw about the beginning of October, though some 

 few stragglers may appear on at times till the first week in 

 November. 



Some few pairs haunt the new and open streets of London next 

 the fields, but do not enter, like the house-martin, the close and 

 crowded parts of the city. 



Both male and female are distinguished from their congeners by 

 the length and forkedness of their tails. They are undoubtedly the 

 most nimble of all the species : and when the male pursues the 

 female in amorous chase, they then go beyond their usual speed, 

 and exert a rapidity almost too quick for the eye to follow. 



After this circumstantial detail of the life and discerning oropyr} 

 of the swallow, I shall add, for your further amusement, an anecdote 

 or two not much in favour of her sagacity : 



A certain swallow built for two years together on the handles of 

 a pair of garden- shears that were stuck up against the boards in 

 an out-house, and therefore must have her nest spoiled whenever 

 that implement was wanted ; and, what is stranger still, another 

 bird of the same species built its nest on the wings and body of an 

 owl that happened by accident to hang dead and dry from tke 

 rafter of a barn. This owl, with the nest on its wings, and with 

 eggs in the nest, was brought as a curiosity worthy the most elegant 

 private museum in Great Britain. The owner, struck with the 

 oddity of the sight, furnished the bringer with a large shell, or 

 conch, desiring him to fix it just where the owl hung : the person 

 did as he was ordered, and the following year a pair, probably 

 the same pair, built their nest in the conch, and laid their eggs. 



The owl and the conch make a strange grotesque appearance, 

 and are not the least curious specimens in that wonderful collection 

 of art and nature.* 



Thus is instinct in animals, taken the least out of its way, an 

 undistinguishing, limited faculty, and blind to every circumstance 

 that does not immediately respect self-preservation, or lead at once 

 to the propagation or support of their species. 



I am, with all respect, &c. &c. 



* Sir Ashton Lever's " Musaeum." 



