ioo NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



I cannot agree with those persons that assert 1 that the 

 swallow kind disappear some and some gradually, as they 

 come, for the bulk of them seem to withdraw at once ; only 

 some stragglers stay behind a long while, and do never, 

 there is the greatest reason to believe, leave this island. 

 Swallows seem to lay themselves up, and to come forth in 

 a warm day, as bats do continually of a warm evening, after 

 they have disappeared for weeks [this moment a bat is 

 flying round my house]. For a very respectable gentleman 

 assured me that, as he was walking with some friends under 

 Merton-wall on a remarkably hot noon, either in the last 

 week in December or the first week in January, he espied 

 three or four swallows huddled together on the moulding 

 of one of the windows of that college. I have frequently 

 remarked that swallows are seen later at Oxford than else- 

 where : is it owing to the vast massy buildings of that place, 

 to the many waters round it, or to what else ? 2 



[Swallows (hirundines rusticce] as far as I can observe, 

 are the only birds that feed their Young flying. At first 

 when they bring out their broods they usually place them 

 in a row on the dead bough of some tree where they feed 

 them sitting. As soon as the young can fly tollerably, the 

 parent-birds, whenever their mouth is well-furnished with 

 flies, give a signal by a certain note ; & the dam & the 

 young bird advancing in a rising direction towards each 

 other on the wing, the food is conveyed by a delicate 

 sleight from the mouth of the former to that of the latter. 

 This method of feeding continues for some time : for after 

 the broods are able to fly pretty strongly, yet there are 

 such awkward vacillations in their motions as incapacitate 

 them to provide for themselves. 



1 In the original letter : " I cannot agree with Mr. Barker " (his brother-in- 

 law), whose notes on migration were then in Pennant's hands. [R. B. S.] 



'- This letter is a reply to some of Mr. Pennant's inquiries, and is remarkable 

 for the very distinct observations made upon the swallows. In a small pamphlet 

 printed at Rotherham in 1815, the author of which we never ascertained, there are 

 some observations made that agree with many of those recorded by Mr. White. 

 These were also made by a clergyman, as it is told in his short preface, " to rescue 

 a beautiful and instructive phenomenon from oblivion, and to render it subservient to 

 the moral improvement of his numerous and highly-respected charge." [W. J.] 



