252 SWIFTS. 



Sex etiam, aut septem loca vidi reddere voces 

 Unam quom jaceres : ita colles collibus ipsis 

 Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre. 

 Haec loca capripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tenere 

 Finitimi fingunt, et Faunos esse loquuntur ; 

 Quorum noctivago strepitu, ludoque jocanti 

 Adfirmant volgo taciturna silentia rumpi, 

 Chordarumque sonos fieri, dulceisque querelas, 

 Tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum ; 

 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. 576. 



XXXIX. 



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 frequently 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 re- 

 occupy their ancient haunts ? 



Ever since I have attended to the subject of 

 ornithology, I have always supposed that the 



