SWIFTS. 
177 
the nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest ; but so strongly 
was she affected by natural (yropyrj for her brood, which she sup- 
posed to be in danger, that, regardless of her own safety, she 
would not stir, but lay sullenly by them, permitting herself to be 
taken in hand. The squab young we brought down and placed 
on the grass-plot, where they tumbled about, and were as help- 
less as a new-born child. While we contemplated their naked 
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 a little 
more than a fortnight would be able to dash through the air 
almost ^\dth 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 nature advance small birds 
to their r/Xifcia, or state of perfection; while the progressive 
growth of men and large quadrupeds is slow and tedious ! 
I am, &c. 
LETTER XXII. To the Hon. DAINES BARRINGTON. 
DEAR SIR, Selborne, Sept. 13, 1774. 
By means of a straight cottage-chimney I had an opportunity 
this summer of remarking, at my leisure, how swallows ascend 
and 'descend through the shaft; but my pleasure, in contem- 
plating the address with which this feat was performed to a con- 
siderable 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 swal- 
low 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 
tiU 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 any thing for or against migration ? 
* Tobit ii. 10. 
N 
