136 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XVIII. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, Jan. 29, 1774. 

 DEAR SIR, 



THE house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, is undoubtedly the 

 first comer of all the British hirundines ; and appears in general 

 on or about the thirteenth of April, as I have remarked from 

 many years observation. Not but now and then a straggler is 

 seen much earlier : and, in particular, when I was a boy I 

 observed a swallow for a whole day together on a sunny warm 

 Shrove Tuesday; which day could not fall out later than the 

 middle of March, and often happened early in February. 



It is worth remarking that these birds are seen first about 

 lakes and mill-ponds ; and it is also very particular, that if these 

 early visitors happen to find frost and snow, as was the case of 

 the two dreadful springs of 1770 and 1771, they immediately 

 withdraw for a time. A circumstance this much more in favour 

 of hiding than migration ; since it is much more probable that a 

 bird should retire to it's hybernaculum just at hand, than return 

 for a week or two only to warmer latitudes. 



The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no means 

 builds together in chimnies, but often within barns and out- 

 houses against the rafters ; and so she did in Virgil's time : 



" Garrula quam tignis nidos suspendat hirundo." 1 



In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called ladu srvala, the 

 barn- swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe there are 

 no chimnies to houses, except they are English-built : in these 

 countries she constructs her nest in porches, and gate-ways, and 

 galleries, and open halls. 



Here and there a bird may affect some odd, peculiar place ; as 

 we have known a swallow build down the shaft of an old well, 

 through which chalk had been formerly drawn up for the 

 purpose of manure : but in general with us this hirundo breeds 

 in chimnies ; and loves to haunt those stacks where there is a 

 constant fire, no doubt for the sake of warmth. Not that it can 



irg., Georg. t iv., 307.] 



