OF SELBORNE 97 



considerable distance : since that no flock has appeared, 

 only a few stragglers. 



Some swifts staid late, till the twenty -second of August 

 — a rare instance 1 for they usually withdraw within the 

 first week.* 



On September the twenty -fourth three or four ring- 

 ousels appeared in my fields for the first time this season : 

 how punctual are these visitors in their autumnal and 

 spring migrations 1 



LETTER XXXVIII 



Selborme, March 15, 1773. 

 Dear Sir, 



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 

 nests 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 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 third ; when twenty, or perhaps 

 thirty, house-martins were playing all day long by the 

 side of the hanging wood, and over my fields. Did these 

 small weak birds, some of which were nestlings twelve 

 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- 

 cliff, steep covert, or perhaps sandbank, lake or pool (as 



* See Letter liii. to Mr. Harrington. 



