NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNK 263 



LETTER LVII. 



A RARE, and I think a new, little bird frequents my garden, 

 which I have great reason to think is the pettichaps : it is 

 common in some parts of the kingdom ; and I have 

 received formerly several dead specimens from Gibraltar. 

 This bird much resembles the white-throat, but has a more 

 white or rather silvery breast and belly ; is restless and 

 active, like the willow-wrens, and hops from bough to 

 bough, examining every part for food ; it also runs up the 

 stems of the crown-imperials, and, putting its head into the 

 bells of those flowers, sips the liquor which stands in the 

 neciarium of each petal. Sometimes it feeds on the ground 

 like the hedge-sparrow, by hopping about on the grass-plots 

 and mown walks. 



One of my neighbours, an intelligent and observing man, 

 informs me that, in the beginning of May, and about ten 

 minutes before eight o'clock in the evening, he discovered a 

 great cluster of house-swallows, thirty, at least, he supposes, 

 perching on a willow that hung over the verge of James 

 Knight's upper-pond. His attention was first drawn by the 

 twittering of these birds, which sat motionless in a row on 

 the bough, with their heads all one way, and, by their 

 weight, pressing down the twig so that it nearly touched 

 the water. In this situation he watched them till he could 

 see no longer. Repeated accounts of this sort, spring and 

 fall, induce us greatly to suspect that house-swallows have 

 some strong attachment to water, independent of the matter 

 of food ; and, though they may not retire into that element, 

 yet they may conceal themselves in the banks of pools and 

 rivers during the uncomfortable months of winter. 



One of the keepers of Wolmer Forest sent me a peregrine* 



