84 The Natural History 



how punctual are these visitors in their autumnal and 

 spring migrations 1 



LETTER XXXVIII 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 



Selborne, March 15, 1 773. 



Dear Sir, 

 By my journal for last autumn it appears that the house- 

 martins bred very late, and staid very late in these parts ; 

 for, on the first of October, I saw young martins in their 

 nests nearly fledged ; and again, on the twenty-first of 

 October, we had at the next house a nest full of young 

 martins just ready to fly ; and the old ones were hawking 

 for insects with great alertness. The next morning the 

 brood forsook their nest, and were flying round the 

 village. From this day I never saw one of the swallow 

 kind till November the third ; when twenty, or perhaps 

 thirty, house-martins were playing all day long by the 

 side of the hanging wood, and over my fields. Did these 

 small weak birds, some of which were nestlings twelve 

 days ago, shift their quarters at this late season of the 

 year to the other side of the northern tropic ? Or rather, 

 is it not more probable that the next church, ruin, chalk- 

 cliff, steep covert, or perhaps sandbank, lake or pool (as 

 a more northern naturalist would say), may become their 

 hybernaculu7n^ and afford them a ready and obvious 

 retreat ? 



We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring- 

 ousels every week. Persojisjvyorthy of credit assure me 

 that ring-ousels were seen at Christmas 1770 in the forest 

 of Bere, on the southern verge of this county. Hence 

 we may conclude that their migrations are only internal, 

 and not extended to the continent southward, if they do 

 at first come at all from the northern parts of this island 

 only, and not from the north of Europe. Come from 

 whence they will, it is plain, from the fearless disregard 



