LETTER XXVII 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE, Feb. 22, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, [In the first place I am to acknowledge your 

 favour of Decem r 23 : which I had no proper leisure nor 

 opportunity of answering before the time at which you 

 proposed to leave Flintshire. I am also to express my 

 thanks for your friendly letter of last week from London, 

 in which you press me to give you a meeting in town. If 

 nothing was wanting but inclination I should with pleasure 

 have set out before now : but this is not a convenient 

 season for me to be from home ; & I am now become a 

 very bad traveller : however I will endeavour to give you a 

 meeting if possible. 



As to the manner how swifts procure materials for their 

 nests I am much at a loss : indeed I rather suspect, & with 

 good reason, that they do not (themselves) procure any at 

 all. For after much & careful observation at the time of 

 breeding I never could see one swift carrying in any thing 

 necessary for building. But as the house-sparrow & swift 

 use exactly the same materials, that is to say, grasses from 

 an hay-rick, & hen's feathers ; I am ready to suspect that 

 the latter take up with the old nests of the former, & 

 perhaps sometimes take away their new nests : for I often 

 see swifts at their first coming squabbling with sparrows at 

 the eaves of the church ; & the cock-sparrows up in arms, 

 & much disturbed at the intrusion of these migrants. Now 

 the swallow & martin, which are known to procure their 

 own materials, are seen building every day : but how the 

 swift should convey long grasses, & large feathers from 



116 



