36 NATURAL HISTORY 



" Et genus agricolum late sentiscere, quom Pan 

 " Pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans, 

 " Unco saepe labro calamos percurrit hianteis, 

 " Fistula silVestrem ne cesset fundere musam." 



Lucretius, Lib. iv. 1. 67^* 



LETTER XXXIX. 



TO THE SAME. 



DEAR SIR; Selborne, May 13, 1778. 



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 longtime 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 frequently haunt it, and 

 play and rendezvous round it, that they are 

 easily enumerated. The number that I 



