OF SELBORNE. 4.9 



whether he saw any of those birds him- 

 self ; to my no small disappointment, he 

 answered me in the negative ; but that 

 others assured him they did. 



Young broods of swallows began to ap- 

 pear this year on July the eleventh, and 

 young martins (hirundines urhicce) were 

 then fledged in their nests. Both species 

 will breed again once. For I see by my 

 fauna of last year, that young broods came 

 forth so late as September the eighteenth. 

 Are not these late hatchings more in 

 favour of hiding than migration ? Nay, 

 some young martins remained in their 

 nests last year so late as September the 

 twenty-ninth; and yet they totally disap- 

 peared with us by the fifth of October, 



How strange it is, that the swift, which 

 seems to live exactly the same life with the 

 swallow and house-martin, should leave us 

 before the middle of August invariably ! 

 while the latter stay often till the middle of 

 October ; and once I saw numbers of house- 

 martins on the seventh of November. The 

 martins and red-wing fieldfares were flying 



VOL. I.. F 



