' 
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. ns 3.$ 
The owl and the conch make a strange, grotesque appearance, 
and are not the least curious spe¢imens in that wonderful 
collection of art and nature. 
Thus is instinct in animals, taken the least out of its way, an 
undistinguishing, limited faculty; and blind to every circum- 
stance that does not immediately respect self-preservation, or 
lead at once to the propagation or support of their species. - 
LETTER XIX. 
SELBORNE, Fed. 14th, 1774. 
I received your favor of the 8th, and am pleased to find that 
_you read my little history of the swallow with your usual candor : 
nor was I the less pleased to find that you made objections 
where you saw reason. 
As to the quotations, it is difficult to say precisely which 
species of Hirundo Virgil might intend in the lines in question, 
since the ancients did not attend to specific differences like 
modern naturalists: yet somewhat may be gathered, enough to 
incline me to suppose that in the two passages quoted the poet 
had his eye on the swallow. 
In the first place, the epithet gavru/a suits the swallow well, 
who is a great songster, ard not the martin, which is rather a 
mute bird; and when it sings is so inward as scarce to be 
heard. Besides, if ¢¢gzum in that place signifies a rafter rather 
than a beam, as it seems to me to do, then I think it must be 
the swallow that is alluded to, and not the martin, since the 
former does frequently build within the roof against the rafters ; 
while the latter always, as far as I have been able to observe, 
builds without the roof against eaves and cornices. 
As to the simile, too much stress must not be laid on it; yet 
_ the epithet migra speaks plainly in favor of the swallow, whose 
