NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 125 



over the salt water. Horsemen on wide downs are often closely attended 

 by a little party of swallows for miles together, which plays before and 

 behind them, sweeping around them, and collecting all the sculking 

 insects that are roused by the trampling of the horses' feet : when the 

 wind blows hard, without this expedient, they are often forced to settle 

 to pick up their lurking prey. 



This species feeds much on little Coleoptera, as well as on .gnats and 

 flies ; and often settles on dug ground, or paths, for gravels to grind and 

 digest its food. Before they depart, for some weeks, to a bird, they forsake 

 houses and chimneys, and roost in trees ; and usually withdraw about 

 the beginning of October; though some few stragglers may appear on 

 at times till the first week in November. 



Some few pairs haunt the new and open streets of London next the 

 fields, but do not enter, like the house-martin, the close and crowded 

 parts of the city. 



Both male and female are distinguished from their congeners by the 

 length and forkedness of their tails. They are undoubtedly the most 

 nimble of all the species : and when the .male .pursues the female in 

 amorous chace, they then go beyond their usual speed, and exert a 

 rapidity almost too quick for the eye to follow. 



After this circumstantial detail of the life and discerning (rropy^ of 

 the swallow, I shall add, for your farther amusement, an anecdote ,or 

 two not much in favour of her sagacity : 



A certain swallow built for two years together on the handles of a 

 pair of garden-shears, that were stuck up against the boards in an out- 

 house, and therefore must have her nest spoiled whenever that imple- 

 ment was wanted : and, what is stranger still, another bird of the same 

 species built its nest on the wings and body of an owl, that happened 

 by accident to hang dead and dry from the .rafter of a barn. This owl, 

 with the nest on its wings, and with eggs in the nest, was brought as a 

 curiosity worthy the most elegant private museum in Great Britain. 

 The owner, struck with the oddity of the sight, furnished the bringer 

 with a large shell, or conch, desiring him to fix it just where the owl 

 hung : the person did as he was ordered, and the following year a pair, 

 probably the same pair, built their nest in the couch, and laid 

 their eggs. 



The owl and the conch make a strange grotesque appearance, and 

 are not the least curious specimens in that 'Wonderful collection of art 

 and nature.* 



Thus is instinct in animals, taken the least out of its way, an undis- 

 tinguishing, limited faculty ; and blind to every circumstance that does 

 not immediately respect self-preservation, or lead at once to the 

 propagation or support of their species. 



I am, with all respect, &c. &c. 



* Sir Ashton Lever's " Musseum." 



