13i 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT, 
times, and then retire again to tlieir latehrce. ISTor make I the 
least doubt but that, if I liv^d at Nevvhaven, Seaford, Bright- 
hehnstone, or any of those towns near the chalk-cliffs of the 
Sussex coast, I should by proper observations, see swallows 
stirring at periods of the winter when the noons w^ere 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, namely, the 13th or 
14th of April, yet meeting with a harsh reception, and 
blustering cold north-east winds, they immediately withdrew, 
absconding for several days, till the weather gave them better 
encouragement. 
March 9, 1772. 
LETTER L. 
TO TROJfyiS PENNANT, ESQ. 
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 1st of October 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 cues were hawking for insects wdth great alertness. 
The next morning the brood forsook their nest, and v/ere flying 
round the village. From this day I never saw one of the 
sv/allow kind till the 3rd of November ; when twenty, or per- 
haps thirty, house-martins were playing all day long by the side 
time of sheep-shearing ; and {h.Q svmUow, the time to put on summer-clotJies. 
According to the Greek calendar of Flora, kept by Theoj)hrastus at Athens, the 
Ornithian winds blow, and the swallow comes between the 28th of February 
and the 12th of March ; the kite and nightingale appear between the 11th 
and 26th of March : the cuckoo aj)pears at the same time the young figs come 
out, thence his name. — Stillingfleet's Tracts on Natural History. 
