or SELBORNE. 49 



whether he saw any of those birds him- 

 self; to my no small disappointment, he 

 answered me in the negative ; but that 

 others assured him they did. 



Young broods of 5?f;rt//oM;^ began to ap- 

 pear this year on July the eleventh, and 

 young martins (hirundines urhiccs) were 

 then fledged in their nests. Both species 

 will breed again once. For 1 see by my 

 fauna of last year, that young broods came 

 forth so late as September the eighteenth. 

 Are not these late hatchings more in 

 favour of hiding than migration ? Nay, 

 some young martins remained in their 

 nests last year so late as September the 

 twenty-ninth ; and yet they totally disap- 

 peared with us by the fifth of October. 



How strange it is, that the swift, which 

 seems to live exactly the same life with the 

 swallow and house-martin, should leave us 

 before the middle oi August invariably ! 

 while the latter stay often till the midd le of 

 October ; and once I saw numbers of house- 

 martins on the seventh oi November. The 

 martins and red-wingfieldfares were flying 



VOL. I. E 



