OF SELBORNE. 115 



LETTER XXXVIII. 



10 THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 



SELBORNE, March 15, 1773. 



Y my journal for last autunm it appears that 

 the house martins bred very late, and stayed 

 vory late in these parts; for on the 1st of Octo- 

 ber, I saw young martins in their nest nearly 

 fledged ; and again, on the 21st of October, we 

 had, at the next house, a nest full of young martins just ready 

 to fly ; and the old ones were hawking 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 3rd ; when twenty, 

 or perhaps thirty, house martins were playing all day long 

 by the side of the hanging wood, and over my field*. Did 

 these small weak birds, some of which were nestlings twelvi 

 days ago, shift their quarters at this late season of the year 

 to the other side of the northern tropic ? -Or rather, is it 

 not more probable that the next church, ruin., chalk <;liff, 

 steep covert, or perhaps sandbank, lake or pool (as a more 

 northern naturalist would say) , may become their hyber- 

 naculum, and afford them a ready and obvious retreat ? 



We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring- 

 ousels every week. Persons worthy of credit assure me 

 that ring- ousels were seen at Christmas., 1770, in the forest 

 of Bere, on the southern verge of this country. Hence wo 

 may conclude Ihat their migrations are only internal, and 

 not extended to the continent southward, if they do at first 

 come at all from the northern parts of this island only, and 

 not from the north of Europe. Come from whence they 

 will, it is plain, from the fearless disregard that they show 

 for men or guns, that they have been little accustomed to 

 places of much resort. Navigators mention, that, in the 

 Isle of Ascension, and other such desolate districts, birds 



