NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



127 



past. For land-springs have never obtained more since the memory 

 of man than during that period ; nor has there been known a greater 

 scarcity of all sorts of grain, considering the great improvements of 

 modern husbandry. Such a run of wet seasons a century or two 

 ago would, I am persuaded, have occasioned a famine. Therefore 

 pamphlets and newspaper letters, that talk of combinations, tend to 

 inflame and mislead ; since we must not expect plenty till Providence 

 sends us more favourable seasons. 



The wheat of last year, all round this district, and in the county of 

 Eutland, and elsewhere, yields remarkably bad ; and our wheat on the 

 ground, by the continual late sudden vicissitudes from fierce frost to 

 pouring rains, looks poorly ; and the turnips rot very fast. 



I am, &c. 



LETTEE XX. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, Feb. 26th, 1774. 



DEAR SIR. The sand-martin, or bank-martin, is by much the least 

 of any of the British hirundines ; and, as far as we have ever seen, the 

 smallest known hirundo; though Brisson asserts that there is one 

 much smaller, and that is the hirundo esculenta* 



But it is much to be regretted that it is scarce possible for any 

 observer to be so 

 full and exact as he 

 could wish in re- 

 citing the circum- 

 stances attending 

 the life and conver- 

 sation of this little 

 bird, since it is f era 

 naturd, at least in 

 this part of the king- 

 dom, disclaiming 

 all domestic attach- 

 ments, and haunt- 

 ing wild heaths 

 and commons where 

 there are large 



lakes ; while the other species, especially the swallow and house-martin, 

 are remarkably gentle and domesticated, and never seem to think 

 themselves safe but under the protection of man. 



Here are in this parish, in the sand-pits and banks of the lakes of 

 Woolmer forest, several colonies of these birds ; and yet they are never 



* The H. esculenta is very small in body, but has a large extent of wing ; it 

 belongs more properly to the group of swifts. There are one or two species 

 smaller even than that mentioned by Brisson. 



The flea of the sand-martin, mentioned next page, is not the same as the bed- 

 flea, but is the Ceratophyllua bifociatus of Curtis. 



ESCULENT SWALLOW. 



