84 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



a little bird as the sand-martin with its soft bill & weak 

 claws should be able to terebrate such deep holes in the 

 hard sand-banks ? & yet there is no manner of doubt but 

 that these latebrae are of their own boring. Some, I see, 

 are now left not more than an Inch deep ; some three 

 or four; & must remain uncompleated 'til some future 

 summer. I remember but one instance of their deviating 

 from this manner of building in banks; & that is at Bishop's 

 Waltham in Hants, where these birds have nested time out 

 of mind in great numbers in the scaffold-holes, & crannies 

 of the walls of the Bishop's old stables, which are now 

 malt-houses. One colony of these martins on the verge of 

 our forest has been dispossessed of their caverns by the 

 house-sparrows, who breed in them, as they often do in 

 the nests of house-martins. M r< Peter Collinson, I re- 

 member, procured several of these holes to be dug-out to 

 the bottom in winter, & found that they were about two 

 feet deep, & serpentine ; but contained nothing but old 

 nests. It appears by my Nat : Journal, that sand-martins 

 were seen in plenty on Septem r i6 th - They always haunt 

 near great lakes, & waters. 



I met with a paragraph in the news-papers some weeks 

 ago that gave me some odd sensations, a kind of mixture of 

 pleasure & pain at the same time : it was as follows : " On 

 the sixth day of August Joseph Banks Esq., accompanyed 

 by D r - Solander, M r - Green the Astronomer, &c: set-out 

 for Deal in order to embark aboard the Endeavour, Captain 

 Cook, bound for the South-seas." When I reflect on the 

 youth & affluence of this enterprizing Gent : I am filled with 

 wonder to see how conspicuously the contempt of dangers, 

 & the love of excelling in his favourite studies stand forth 

 in his character. And yet tho' I admire his resolution, 

 which scorns to stoop to any difficulties ; I cannot divest 

 myself of some degree of solicitude for his person. The 

 circumnavigation of the globe is an undertaking that must 

 shock the constitution of a person inured to a sea-faring life 

 from his childhood : & how much more that of a landman ? 

 May we not hope that this strong Impulse, which urges for- 



