SWALLOWS. 149 



LETTER LVII. 

 TO THE HON. DAINES HARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, January 29, 1774. 



DEAR SIR, The house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, is, 

 undoubtedly, the first comer of all the British hirundines ; and 

 appears in general on or about the thirteenth of April, as I have 

 remarked from many years' observation. * Not but now and 

 then a straggler is seen much earlier : and, in particular, when 

 I was a boy, I observed a swallow for a whole day together 

 on a sunny warm Shrove Tuesday, which day could not fall 

 out later than the middle of March, and often happened early 

 in February. 



It is worth remarking, that these birds are seen first about 

 lakes and mill-ponds ; and it is also very particular, that, if 

 these early visitors happen to find frost and snow, as was the 

 case of the two dreadful springs of 1770 and 1771, they imme- 

 diately withdraw for a time ; a circumstance this, much more 

 in favour of hiding than migration ; since it is much more 

 probable that a bird should retire to its hybernaculum just 



off to their box every thing they could get hold of. Besides this, they 

 were very mischievous : they would attend the gardener at his work, and 

 as soon as he removed to another part of the garden, they pulled up by 

 the roots every thing he had planted ; such as young cabbages, or leeks. 

 They Lad particular pleasure in turning over the leaves of a book, or 

 pulling the whole thread off a bobbin. ED. 



* The following beautiful and vivid reflections on the swallow are 

 from the pen of the late Sir Humphry Davy : "I delight in this 

 living landscape ! the swallow is one of my favourite birds, and a rival of 

 the nightingale ; for he glads my sense of hearing. He is the joyous 

 prophet of the year, the harbinger of the best season ; he has a life of 

 enjoyment amongst the loveliest forms of nature ; winter is unknown to 

 him, and he leaves the green meadows of England in autumn for the 

 myrtle and orange groves of Italy, and for the palms of Africa ; he has 

 always objects of pursuit, and his success is secure. Even the beings 

 selected for his prey are poetical, beautiful, and transient. The ephemerae are 

 saved by his means from a slow and lingering death in the evening, and 

 killed in a moment when they have known nothing of life but pleasure. 

 He is the constant destroyer of insects, the friend of man ; and with 

 the stork and the ibis, may be regarded as a sacred bird. This instinct, 

 which gives him his appointed seasons, and which teaches him always 

 when and where to move, may be regarded as flowing from a Divine 

 source, and he belongs to the oracles of nature, which speak the awful 

 and intelligible language of a present Deity." ED. 



