OF SELBORNE 151 



meaning that when the earth is so glutted with water as to 

 send forth springs on the downs and uplands, that the corn- 

 vales must be drowned ; and so it has proved for these ten 

 or eleven years 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 Rutland, 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. 



LETTER XX 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



Selborne, Feb. 2 , 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 reciting the circumstances attending the life and conver- 

 sation of this little bird, since it \s fera naturd, at least in 

 this part of the kingdom, disclaiming all domestic attach- 

 ments, and haunting wild heaths and commons where there 

 are large lakes ; while the other species, especially the 



