NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. Ill 



round-billed birds, and can grope for their meat when out of sight. 

 Perhaps, then, their associates attend them on the motive of interest, 

 as greyhounds wait on the motions of their finders ; and as lions are 

 said to do on the yelpings of jackalls. Lapwings and starlings some- 

 times associate.* 



LETTER XII. 



TO THE SAME. 



March 9th, 1772. 



DEAR SIR, As a gentleman and myself were walking on the fourth 

 of last November round the sea-banks at Newhaven, near the mouth of 

 the Lewes river, in pursuit of natural knowledge, we were surprised to 

 see three house-swallows gliding very swiftly by us. That morning was 

 rather chilly, with the wind at north-west ; but the tenor of the weather 

 for some time before had been delicate, and the noons remarkably 

 warm. From this incident, and from repeated accounts which I meet 

 with, I am more and more induced to believe that many of the swallow 

 kind do not depart from this island, but lay themselves up in holes and 

 caverns ; and do, insect-like and bat-like, come forth at mild times, and 

 then retire again to their latebrce. Nor make I the least doubt but 

 that, if I lived at Newhaven, Seaford, Brighthelmstone, or any of those 

 towns near the chalk cliffs of the Sussex coast, by proper observations, 

 I should see swallows stirring at periods of the winter, when the noons 

 were soft and inviting, and the sun warm and invigorating. And I am 

 the more of this opinion from what I have remarked during some of our 

 late springs, that though some swallows did make their appearance 

 about the usual time, viz., the thirteenth or fourteenth of April, yet 

 meeting with an harsh reception, and blustering cold north-east winds, 

 they immediately withdrew, absconding for several days, till the weather 

 gave them better encouragement. 



LETTER XIII. 



TO THE SAME. 



April IWi, 1772. 



DEAR SIR, While I was in Sussex last autumn my residence was at 

 the village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the pleasure of 

 writing to you. On the first of November I remarked that the old 

 tortoise, formerly mentioned, began first to dig the ground in order to 

 the forming its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great 

 tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore-feet, and 

 throws it up over its back with its hind ; but the motion of its legs is 

 ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a clock ; and suitable 



* In Holland lapwings and starlings associate in vast flocks, particularly after 

 the season of incubation has passed, and the broods have joined together. In the 

 open meadows that border the canals they may be seen together in thousands. 



