184 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
na,ked bodies, their unwieldy disproportioned abdomina, and 
their heads too heavy for their necks to support, we could not 
but wonder when we reflected that these shiftless beings in 
little more than a fortnight would be able to dash through the 
air almost with the inconceivable swiftness of a meteor ; and 
perhaps, in their emigration, must traverse vast continents and 
oceans as distant as the equator. So soon does ISTature advance 
small birds to their rjXi/cia, or state of perfection ; while the 
progressive growth of men and large (juadrupeds is slow and 
tedious 1 
Selborne, Sepf. 28, 1774, 
LKTTEK LXIII. 
yv,' THE nnxoun.iBLE D.irxEs ii.iuinMrroy. 
])V means of a straight cottage-cliimney I. had an opportu- 
nity this summer of remarking at my leisure how swallows 
ascend and descend through the shaft ; but my pleasure in con- 
templating the address with which this feat was performed to a 
considerable depth in the chimney was somewhat interrupted 
]»y apprehensions lest my eyes might undergo the same fate 
with those of Tobit. 
Perhaps it may be some amusement to you to hear at what 
times the different species of hirmidines arrived this spring in 
three very distant counties of this kingdom. With us the 
swallow w\as seen first on April the 4th, tlie swift on April the 
24th, the bank-martin on April the 1 2th, and the house-rnartin 
not till April the 30th. At South Zele, Devonshire, swallows did 
not arrive till April the 25th ; swifts, in plenty, on May the 1st ; 
and house-martins not till the middle of May. At Blackburn, in 
Lancashire, swifts were seen April the 28th, swallows April the 
29th, house-martins May the 1st. Do these different dates in 
such distant districts prove anything for or against migration ? 
