248 SWIFTS. 



LETTER XCVI. 

 TO THE HON. DAINES HARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, September 9, 1781. 



I HAVE just met with a circumstance respecting swifts, which 

 furnishes an exception to the whole tenor of my observations 

 ever since I have bestowed any attention on that species of 

 hirundines. Our swifts, in general, withdrew this year about 

 the first day of August, all save one pair, which in two or three 

 days was reduced to a single bird. The perseverance of this 

 individual made me suspect that the strongest of motives, that 

 of an attachment to her young, could alone occasion so late a 

 stay. I watched therefore till the twenty-fourth of August, 

 and then discovered that, under the eaves of the church, she 

 attended upon two young, which were fledged* and now put 

 out their white chins from a crevice. These remained till the 

 twenty-seventh, looking more alert every day, and seeming to 

 long to be on the wing. After this day, they were missing at 

 once ; nor could I ever observe them with their dam coursing 

 round the church in the act of learning to fly, as the first broods 

 evidently do. On the thirty-first, 1 caused the eaves to be 

 searched ; but we found in the nest only two callow, dead, 

 stinking swifts, on which a second nest had been formed. 

 This double nest was full of the black shining cases of the 

 hippoboscce hirundinis. 



The following remarks on this'unusual incident are obvious : 

 The first is, that though it be disagreeable to swifts to remain 

 beyond the beginning of August, yet that they can subsist 

 longer is undeniable. The second is, that this uncommon 

 event, as it was owing to the loss of the first brood, so it cor- 

 roborates my former remark, that swifts breed regularly but 

 once ; since, was the contrary the case, the occurrence above 

 could neither be new nor rare. 



P.S. One swift was seen at Lyndon, in the county of Rut- 

 land, in 1 782j so late as the 3d of September. 



LETTER XCVII. 



TO THE HON. DAINES HARRINGTON. 



As I have sometimes known you make inquiries about 

 several kinds of insects, I shall here send you an account of 



