1 82 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 



LETTER XXII. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, Sept. i^th, 1774. 



DEAR SIR, By means of a straight cottage chimney, I had an 

 opportunity this summer of remarking, at my leisure, how swallows 

 ascend and descend through the shaft ; but my pleasure in contem- 

 plating the address with which this feat was performed to a 

 considerable depth in the chimney was somewhat interrupted by 

 apprehensions lest my eyes might undergo the same fate with those 

 of Tobit.* 



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 kingdom. With us the swallow was seen 

 first on April the 4th, the swift on April the 24th, the bank-martin 

 on April the I2th, and the house-martin not till April the 3oth. At 

 South Zele, Devonshire, swallows did not arrive till April the 25th, 

 swifts in plenty on May the ist, and house-martins not till the 

 middle of May. At Blackburn, in Lancashire, swifts were seen 

 April the 28th, swallows April the 29th, house-martins May the ist. 

 Do these different dates, in such distant districts, prove anything 

 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 

 night, 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 indncias cum avibus^ 

 quamdiu cuculus cuculat ;" but it appears to me, that during that 



* " The same night also I returned from the burial and slept by the wall of my courtyard, 

 being polluted, and my face was uncovered. 



" And I knew not that there were sparrows (swallows ?) in the wall, and mine eyes beirg 

 open, the sparrows muted warm dung into mine eyes, and a whiteness came into mine 

 eyes ; and I went to the physicians, but they helped me nor." TOBIT ii. 10. 



The Greek word is ar po -u6ia. t pi. of arpoveiov, dimin. of orpovfloV, commonly translated a 

 sparrow, but taken also to mean any small bird. Bochart and the Latia Vulgate take 

 them to be hirundines, which the Arabs held as a genus of sparrows, and called the 

 " Sparrow of Paradise." " Ghusfocr Aljinnut." 



