NA TURAL fflSTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 263 



LETTER LVII. 



TO THE SAME. 



A RARE, and I think a new, little bird frequents my garden, 

 which I have great reason to think is the pettichaps : it is common 

 in some parts of the kingdom ; and I have received formerly 

 several dead specimens from Gibraltar. This bird much resembles 

 the white-throat, but has a more white or rather silvery breast and 

 belly ; is restless and active, like the willow-wrens, and hops from 

 bough to bough, examining every part for food ; it also runs up the 

 stems of the crown-imperials, and, putting its head into the bells 

 of those flowers, sips the liquor which stands in the nectarium of 

 each petal. Sometimes it feeds on the ground like the hedge- 

 sparrow, by hopping about on the grass-plots and mown walks. 



One of my neighbours, an intelligent and observing man, informs 

 me that, in the beginning of May, and about ten minutes before 

 eight o'clock in the evening, he discovered a great cluster of house- 

 swallows, thirty, at least, he supposes, perching on a willow that 

 hung over the verge of James Knight's upper-pond. His attention 

 was first drawn by the twittering of these birds, which sat motion- 

 less in a row on the bough, with their heads all one way, and, by 

 their weight, pressing down the twig so that it nearly touched the 

 water. In this situation he watched them till he could see no 

 longer. Repeated accounts of this sort, spring and fall, induce us 

 greatly to suspect that house-swallows have some strong attach- 

 ment to water, independent of the matter of food ; and, though 

 they may not retire into that element, yet they may conceal them- 

 selves in the banks of pools and rivers during the uncomfortable 

 months of winter. 



One of the keepers of Woolmer Forest sent me a peregrine- 

 falcon, which he shot on the verge of that district as it was 

 devouring a wood-pigeon. Thefafco peregrinus, or haggard-falcon, 

 is a noble species of hawk seldom seen in the southern counties. 

 In winter 1767, one was killed in the neighbouring parish of 



