OF SELBORNE. 
167 
TO THOMAS TENNAXT, ESQ. 
Before your letter arrived, and of my own a(3cord, T had Leeii 
remarking and comparing tlie tails of the male and female 
swallow, and this ere any young broods appeared ; so tliat there 
was no danger of confounding the dams with their imlli: and 
besides, as they were then always in pairs, and busied in the 
employ of nidification, there could be no room for nustaking the 
sexes, nor the individuals of different chimneys the one for the 
other. From all my observations, it constantly appeared that 
each sex has the long feathers in its tail that give it that forked 
shape ; with this difference, that they are longer in the tail of 
the male than in that of the female. 
jS'ightingales, when their young first come abroad, and are 
helpless, make a plaintive and a jarring noise ; and also a snap- 
ping or cracking, pursuing people along the hedges as they 
walk : these last sounds seem intended for menace and defiance 
The grasshopper-lark chirps all night in the Iieight of 
summer. 
Swans turn white the second year, and breed the third. 
AYeasels prey on moles, as appears by their being sometimes 
caught in mole-traps. 
Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows* nests, and the 
kestril in churches and ruins. 
There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island of 
Ely. The threads sometimes discovered in eels are perliaps their 
young : the generation of eels is very dark and mysterious. 
Hen-harriers breed on the ground, and seem never to settle 
on trees. 
[Of this bold bird White afterwards writes in his " Observa- 
tions :" — "A gentleman flushed a pheasant in a wdieat stubble, and 
shot at it ; when, notwithstanding the report of the gun, it was 
