OF SELBORNE 151 



LETTER XXII. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, Sept. 13, 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 contemplating 

 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. 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 kingdom. 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 Blackburn, 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 after- 

 noon. 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. 



Linnaus says that hawks " paciscuntur inducias cum ambus, quamdiu 

 cuculus cuculat " : 2 but it appears to me that, during that period, 

 many little birds are taken and destroyed by birds of prey, as 

 may be seen by their feathers left in lanes and under hedges. 



The missel-thrush is, while breeding, fierce and pugnacious, 

 driving such birds as approach it's nest, with great fury, to a 



1 Tobit, ii. 10. 



2 [This curious statement of Linnaeus that hawks ' ' make a truce with small birds 

 as long as the cuckoo's voice is heard" may possibly have its origin in Aristotle, 

 who, while combating the vulgar notion that the cuckoo changes into a hawk, 

 admits that few hawks can be seen during the time when the cuckoo is singing (,7w/. 

 A nim. , Bk. vi. , p. 7). This may be explained by the spring migration of hawks north- 

 ward in the east of Europe.] 



