LETTER XXXIX 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE, May 13, 1778. 



DEAR SIR, Among the many singularities attending 

 those amusing birds the swifts, I am now confirmed in the 

 opinion that we have every year the same number of pairs 

 invariably ; at least the result of my inquiry has been exactly 

 the same for a long time past. The swallows and martins 

 are so numerous, and so widely distributed over the village, 

 that it is hardly possible to recount them ; while the swifts, 

 though they do not all build in the church, yet so fre- 

 quently haunt it, and play and rendezvous round it, that 

 they are easily enumerated. The number that I constantly 

 find are eight pairs ; about half of which reside in the 

 church, and the rest build in some of the lowest and 

 meanest thatched cottages. Now as these eight pairs, 

 allowance being made for accidents, breed yearly eight 

 pairs more, what becomes annually of this increase ; and 

 what determines every spring which pairs shall visit us, and 

 reoccupy their ancient haunts ? 



Ever since I have attended to the subject of ornithology, 

 I have always supposed that that sudden reverse of affection, 

 that strange avrio-ropyr), which immediately succeeds in the 

 feathered kind to the most passionate fondness, is the 

 occasion of an equal dispersion of birds over the face of 

 the earth. Without this provision one favourite district 

 would be crowded with inhabitants, while others would be 

 destitute and forsaken. But the parent birds seem to 

 maintain a jealous superiority, and to oblige the young to 



seek for new abodes ; and the rivalry of the males in many 



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