NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 173 



is usually called a mouse-colour. Near Valencia, in Spain, 

 they are taken, says Willughby, and sold in the markets for 

 the table ; and are called by the country people, probably 

 from their desultory jerking manner of flight, Papilion de 

 Montagna. 



LETTER XXI, 



Selborne, Sept. 28th, 1774. 



As the swift or black-martin is the largest of the British 

 hirundines, so it is undoubtedly the latest comer. For 

 I remember but one instance of its appearing before the last 

 week in April ; and in some of our late frosty, harsh 

 springs it has not been seen till the beginning of May. 

 This species usually arrives in pairs. 



The swift, like the sand-martin, is very defective in 

 architecture, making no crust, or shell, for its nest ; but 

 forming it of dry grasses and feathers, very rudely and 

 inartificially put together. With all my attention to these 

 birds, I have never been able once to discover one in the 

 act of collecting or carrying in materials ; so that I have 

 suspected (since their nests are exactly the same) that they 

 sometimes usurp upon the house-sparrows, and expel them, 

 as sparrows do the house and sand-martin ; well remember- 

 ing that I have seen them squabbling together at the 

 entrance of their holes, and the sparrows up in arms, and 

 much disconcerted at these intruders. And yet I am 

 assured, by a nice observer in such matters, that they 

 do collect feathers for their nests in Andalusia, and that he 

 has shot them with such materals in their mouths. 



