l6"2 NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XXXVIII. 



TO THE SAME. 



DEAR SIR; Selborne, March 15, 1773. 



By my journal for last Autumn it appears 

 that the house-martins bred very late, and 

 staid very late in these parts ; for, on the 

 first of October, I saw young martins in 

 their nest nearly fledged ; and again, on 

 the twenty-first of October, we had at the 

 next house a nest full of young martins just 

 ready to fly ; and the old ones were hawk- 

 ing for insects with great alertness. The 

 next morning the brood forsook their nest, 

 and were flying round the village. From 

 this day I never saw one of the swallow 

 kind till November the third; when twenty, 

 or perhaps thirty, house-martins were play- 

 ing all day long by the side of the hanging 

 wood, and over my fields. Did these small 

 weak birds, some of which were nestlings 



