128 The Natural History 



upper mandible, have a more delicate feeling in their 

 beaks than other round-billed birds, and can grope for their 

 meat when out of sight. Perhaps then their associates 

 attend them on the motive of interest, as greyhounds 

 wait on the motions of their finders ; and as lions are 

 said to do on the yelpings of jackals. Lapwings and 

 starlings sometimes associate. 



LETTER XII 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



March 9, 1772. 



Dear Sir, 



As a gentleman and myself were walking on the fourth of 

 last November round the sea-banks at Newhaven, near 

 the mouth of the Lewes river, in pursuit of natural know- 

 ledge, we were surprised to see three house-swallows 

 gliding very swiftly ])y us. That morning was rather 

 chilly, with the wind at north-west ; but the tenor of the 

 weather for some time before had been delicate, and the 

 noons remarkably warm. From this incident, and from 

 repeated accounts which I meet with, I am more and 

 more induced to believe that many of the swallow kind 

 do not depart from this island ; but lay themselves up in 

 holes and caverns ; and do, insect-like and bat-like, come 

 forth at mild times, and then retire again to their latebrce. 

 Nor make I the least doubt but that, if I lived at New- 

 haven, Seaford, Brighthelmstone, or any of those towns 

 near the chalk-cliffs of the Sussex coast, by proper 

 observations, I should see swallows stirring at periods of 

 the winter, when the noons were soft and inviting, and 

 the sun warm and invigorating. And I am the more of 

 this opinion from what I have remarked during some of 

 our late springs, that though some swallows did make 

 their appearance about the usual lime, viz., the thirteenth 

 or fourteenth of April, yet meeting with an harsh recep- 

 tion, and blustering cold north-east winds, they immedi- 



