OF SELBORNE 147 



fbeaks than other 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 jackals. Lapwings and 

 ;starlings sometimes associate. 



LETTER XII 



March 9, 1772. 

 Dear Sir, 



As a gentleman and myself were walking on the fourth ot 

 last November round the sea-banks at Newhaven, near 

 the mouth of the Lewes river, in pursuit of natural know- 

 ledge, 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 latebrsa. 

 l^or make I the least doubt but that, if I lived at New- 

 haven, 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 



