OF 8ELB0RNE. 
209 
and, perhaps, in their emigration, must traverse vast conti- 
nents and oceans as distant as the equator. So soon does 
Nature advance small birds to their ^Xikioc, or state of per- 
fection; while the progressive growth of men and large 
quadrupeds is slow and tedious ! 
LETTER XXII. 
TO THE. HONOURABLE DAINES BAKKINGTON. 
Selborne, Sept. 13, 1774. 
Y means of a straight cottage chimney I 
had an opportunity this summer of re- 
marking, at my leisure, how swallows ascend 
and descend through the shaft : but my 
pleasure , in contemplating the address with 
which this feat was performed to a considerable depth in 
the chimney, was somewhat interrupted by 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 Hirundines arrived this 
spring in three very distant counties of this kingdom. 
With us the swallow was seen first on April the 4th, the 
swift on April the 24th, the bank martin on April the 12th, 
and the house martin 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 Blackburne, in Lancashire, 
swifts were seen April the 28th; swallows, April the 29t]i ; 
house martins, May the 1st. Do these different dates in such 
distant districts, prove anything for or against migration ?^ 
1 Tobit, ii. 10. 
2 See the " Field Calendar of Ornithology General Eeport for 
1872; published in " The Field" of May 31 and June 7, 1873, and 
subsequently reprinted. — Ed. 
P 
