HOUSE MARTEN. 139 



When it happens to be silent in the night, by throwing a stone 

 or clod into the bushes where it sits, you immediately set it 

 a-singing, or, in other words, though it slumbers sometimes, 

 yet, as soon as it is awakened, it reassumes its song. 



It will be proper to premise here, that the fifty-fifth, fifty-seventh, 

 fifty-ninth, and sixty-first letters have been published already in the 

 Philosophical Transactions ; but, as nicer observation has furnished 

 several corrections and additions, it is hoped that the republication of 

 them will not give offence ; especially as these sheets would be very 

 imperfect without them, and as they will be new to many readers who 

 had no opportunity of seeing them when they made their first appearance. 



LETTER LV. 



TO THE HON. DAINES HARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, November, 20, 1773. 



DEAR SIR, In obedience to your injunctions, I sit down 

 to give you some account of the house-marten, or martlet ; 

 and, if my monography of this little domestic and familiar bird 

 should happen to meet with your approbation, I may probably 

 soon extend my inquiries to the rest of the British htrwidta&i 

 the swallow, the swift, and the bank-marten. 



A few house-martens begin to appear about the 16th of 

 April ; usually some few days later than the swallow. For 

 some time after they appear, the hirundines in general pay no 

 attention to the business of nidification, but play and sport 

 about, either to recruit from the fatigue of their journey, if 



as well as that of the house-sparrow. I have heard it imitate, in succes- 

 sion, (intermixed with its own note of chur chur,) the swallow, the 

 house-marten, the greenfinch, the chaffinch, and lesser redpole, the red- 

 start, the willow-wren, the whinchat, the pied and spring wagtails ; yet 

 its imitations are confined to the notes of alarm of these birds, and so 

 exactly does it imitate them, both in tone and modulation, that, if it were 

 to confine itself to one, (no matter which,) and not interlard the wailings 

 of the little redpole and the shrieks of the marten, with the curses of the 

 house-sparrow, and the twink twink of the chaffinch, and its' own care- 

 for-nought chatter, the most practised ear would not detect the difference. 

 After being silent for a while, it often begins with the chur chur of the 

 sparrow, so exactly imitated, in every respect, that, were it not for what 

 follows, no one would suppose it to be any other bird. It is called the 

 mocking bird here, (Lancashire,) and it well deserves the name; for it 

 is a real scoffer at the sorrows of other birds, which it laughs to scorn, 

 and turns into ridicule, by parodying them so exactly." ED. 



