OF 8BLB0RNE, 
237 
suppose tliat two whole species, or at least many individuals 
of those two species of British Hirundines do never leave 
this island at all, but partake of the same benumbed state ; 
for we cannot suppose that, after a month^s absence, house 
martins can return from southern regions to appear for one 
morning in November, or that house swallows should leave 
the districts of Africa to enjoy, in March, the transient 
summer of a couple of dajs.^ 
LETTER XXXYII. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 
Selborne, Jan. 8, 1778. 
HERE was in this village, several years ago, a 
miserable pauper, who, from his birth, was 
afflicted with a leprosy, as far as we are aware, 
of a singular kind, since it affected only the 
palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. 
This scaly eruption usually broke out twice in the year, at 
the spring and fall ; and, by peeling away, left the skin so 
thin and tender, that neither his hands nor feet were able 
to perform their functions ; so that the poor object was half 
his time on crutches, incapable of employ, and languishing 
in a tiresome state of indolence and inactivity. His habit 
was lean, lank, and cadaverous. In this sad plight he 
dragged on a miserable existence, a burthen to himself and 
his parish, which was obliged to support him till he was 
relieved by death, at more than thirty years of age. 
The good women, who love to account for every defect 
in children by the doctrine of longing, said that his mother 
felt a violent propensity for oysters, which she was unable 
to gratify ; and that the black rough scurf on his hands and 
^ A more obvious explanation of tLe appearance of swallows in No- 
vember is that they are late broods from the north ; and those seen in 
March are earlj arrivals on their way northwards. — Ed. 
