OF SELBORNE. 
263 
LETTER LI. 
TO THE SAME. 
SelgorNE, Sept. 3, lyZt. 
I HAVE now read your mifcellanies through with much care and 
fatisfadion ; and am to return you my beft thanks for the honour- 
able mention made in them of me as a naturalift, which I wifli I 
may deferve. 
In fome fonner letters I expreffed my fufpicions that many of 
the houfe-martins do not depart in the winter far from this village. 
I therefore determined to make fome fearch about the fouth-eafl: 
end of the hill, where I imagined they might flumber out the 
uncomfortable months of winter. But fuppofing that the exami- 
nation would be made to the beft advantage in the fpring, and 
obferving that no martins had appeared by the i ith of April laft; 
on that day I employed fome men to explore the Ihrubs and cavi- 
ties of the fufpeded fpot. The perlbns took pains, but without 
any fuccefs ; however, a remarkable incident occurred in the 
midft of our purfuit — while the labourers were at work a houfe- 
.-nartin, the firft that had been feen this year, came down the 
village in the fight of feveral people, and went at once into a 
neft, where it ftayed a fhort time, and then flew over the houfes ; 
for fome days after no martins were obferved, not till the i6th of 
jipril, and then only a pair. Martins in general were remarkably 
late this year. 
LETTER 
