LXIl.J 
OF SELBORNE. 
LETTEK LXIL 
Ti> THE IIOXOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTOX. 
As the swift or bla(3k martin is the largest of the British 
hirundines, so is it undoubtedly the latest comer. For I remember 
but one instance of its appearing before the last week in April ; 
and in some of our late frosty, harsh springs, it has not been 
seen till the beginning of May. This species usually arrives in 
pairs. 
The swift, like the sand-martin, is very defective in architec- 
ture, making no crust, or shell, for its nest ; but forming it of dry 
grasses and feathers, very rudely and inartificially put together. 
With all my attention to these birds, I have never been 
able once to discover one in the act of collecting or carrying in 
materials : so that I have suspected (since their nests are exactly 
the same) that they sometimes usurp upon the house-sparrows, 
and expel them, as sparrows do the house and sand-martin ; 
well remembering that I have seen them squabbling together at 
the entrance of their holes ; and the sparrows up in arms, and 
much disconcerted at these intruders. And yet I am assured by 
a nice observer in such matters, that they do collect feathers for 
their nests in Andalusia ; and that he has shot them with such 
materials in their mouths. 
Swifts, like sand-martins, carry on the business of nidificatioi] 
quite in the dark, in crannies of castles, and towers, and steeples, 
and upon the tops of the walls of churches under the roof ; and 
therefore cannot be so narrowly watched as those species that 
build more openly ; but, from what I could ever observe, they 
begin nesting about the middle of May ; and I have remarked, 
from eggs taken, that they have sat hard by the 9th of June. 
In general they haunt tall buildings, churches, and steeples, and 
breed only in such : yet in this village some pairs frequent the 
lowest and meanest cottages, and educate their young under 
those thatched roofs. I remember but one instance wdiere they 
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