SWALLOWS. 31 



any such account worth attending- to, But a 

 clergyman, of an inquisitive turn, assures me, 

 that when he was a great bo,y, some workmen, 

 in pulling down the battlements of a church tower 

 early in the spring, found two or three swifts 

 (hirundines apodes) among the rubbish, which were, 

 at first appearance, dead; but, on being carried 

 toward the fire, revived. He told me that, out of 

 his great care to preserve them, he put them in a 

 paper bag, and hung them by the kitchen fire, 

 where they were suffocated. 



Another intelligent person has informed me 

 that, while he was a schoolboy at Brighthelmstone, 

 in Sussex, a great fragment of the chalk cliff fell 

 down one stormy winter on the beach, and that 

 many people found swallows among the rubbish ; 

 but, on my questioning him whether he saw any 

 of those birds himself, to my no small disappoint - 

 ment he answered me in the negative, but that 

 others assured him they did. 



Young broods of swallows began to appear this 

 year on July the llth, and young martins (hirun- 

 dines nrbicce) were then fledged in their nests. 

 Both species will breed again once ; for I see by 

 my Fauna of last year, that young broods came 

 forth so late as September the 18th. Are not 

 these late hatchings more in favour of hiding than 

 migration ? Nay, some young martins remained 

 in their nests last year so late as September the 

 29th ; and yet they totally disappeared with us by 

 the 5th of October. 



How strange it is, that the swift, which seems 

 to live exactly the same life with the swallow and 

 house -martin, should leave us before the middle of 

 August invariably ! while the latter stay often till 

 the middle of October ; and once I saw numbers 

 of house-martins on the 7th of November. The 



