 Section 8 of Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne. Letters 7 to 15 to the Honourable Danes Barrington. Letter 7 to the Honourable Danes Barrington. Ringma, near Lewis, October the 8th, 1770. Dear sir, I am glad to hear that Cucalmes to furnish you with the birds of Jamaica. A sight of the heron-dines of that hot and distant land would be great entertainment to me. The Anni of Scopoli are now in my possession, and I have read the Anni's primus with satisfaction, for though some parts of this work are exceptional, and he may advance some mistaken observations, yet the ornithology of so distant a country as Carniola is very curious, men that undertake only one district are much more likely to advance natural knowledge than those that grasp it more than they can possibly be acquainted with. Every kingdom, every province, should have its own monographer. The reason perhaps why he mentions nothing of Ray's ornithology may be the extreme poverty and distance of his country into which the works of our great naturalist may have never yet found their way. You have doubts, I know, whether this ornithology is genuine, and really the work of Scopoli. As to myself, I think I discover strong tokens of authenticity. The style corresponds with that of his entomology, and his characters of his ordinaise and genera are many of them new, expressive, and masterly. He has ventured to alter some of the Linnaean genera with sufficient show of reason. It might perhaps be mere accident that you saw so many swifts and no swallows at stains, because in my long observations of those birds, I never could discover the least degree of rivalry or hostility between the species. Ray remarks that birds of the Galinae order, as cocks and hens, partridges and pheasants, etc., are pulveratrices, such as dust themselves, using that method of cleansing their feathers and ridding themselves of their vermin. As far as I can observe, many birds that dust themselves never wash, and I once thought that those birds that wash themselves would never dust, but here I find myself mistaken, for common house sparrows are great pulveratrices, being frequently seen grovelling and wallowing in dusty roads, and yet they are great washers. Does not the skylark dust query? Might not Muhammad and his followers take one method of purification from these pulveratrices, because I find from travellers of credit that if a strict muscle man is journeying in a sandy desert where no water is to be found, at stated hours he strips off his clothes and most scrupulously rubs his body over with sand or dust. A countryman told me he had found a young fern owl in the nest of a small bird on the ground and that it was fed by the little bird. I went to see this extraordinary phenomenon and found that it was a young cuckoo hatched in the nest of a titlark. It was become vastly too big for its nest, appearing in tenue ray majoris penacnido extendici, reader's note spreading wings too wide for its nest, and reader's note, and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger as I teased it, for many feet from the nest and sparring and buffeting with its wings like a game-cock. The dupe of a dam appeared at a distance hovering about with meat in its mouth and expressing the greatest solicitude. In July I saw several cuckoos skimming over a large pond and found after some observation that they were feeding on the libelluli or dragonflies, some of which they caught as they settled on the weeds, and some as they were on the wing. Notwithstanding what Linnaeus says, I cannot be induced to believe that they are birds of prey. This district affords some birds that are hardly ever heard of at Selwarn. In the first place considerable flocks of cross-peaks, loxier curvy rostry, have appeared this summer in the pine groves belonging to this house. The water-oozle is said to haunt the mouth of the Lewis River, near New Haven, and the Cornish Chuff builds, I know, all along the chalky cliffs of the Sussex Shore, and the Cornish Chuff builds, I know, all along the chalky cliffs of the Sussex Shore. I was greatly pleased to see little parties of ring-oozles, my newly discovered migrators, scattered at intervals all along the Sussex Downs from Chichester to Lewis. Let them come from whence they will, it's looks very suspicious that they are cant on the long the coast in order to pass the channel when severe weather advances. They visit us again in April, as it should seem in their return, and are not to be found in the dead of winter. It is remarkable that they are very tame and seem to have no manner of apprehensions of danger from a person with a gun. There are bustards on the wide Downs near Bright Helmstone. No doubt you are acquainted with the Sussex Downs. The prospects and rides round Lewis are most lovely. As I rode along near the coast, I kept a very sharp lookout in the lanes and woods, hoping I might, at this time of the year, have discovered some of the summer short-winged birds of passage crowding towards the coast in order for their departure, but it was very extraordinary that I never saw a red-start, white-throat, black-cap, uncrested wren, fly-catcher, etc. and I'll remember to have made the same remark in former years, as I usually come to this place annually about this time. The birds most common along the coast at present are the stone-chatters, windchats, buntings, linets, some few wheat ears, titlarks, etc. Swallows and house-mottons are bound yet, induced to prolong their stay by this soft, still dry season. A land tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in a little walled court belonging to the house where I now am visiting, retires underground about the middle of November and comes forth again about the middle of April. When it first appears in the spring, it discovers very little inclination towards food, but in the height of summer grows voracious and then, as the summer declines, its appetite declines, so that for the last six weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky plants, such as lettuces, dandelions, south-histles are its favourite dish. In a neighbouring village, one was kept till, by tradition, it was supposed to be a hundred years old, an instance of vast longevity in such a poor reptile. Letter 8 to the Honourable Danes Barrington, Selbourne, December 20, 1770 Dear Sir, the birds that I took for Aberdeveens were reed-spurrows, Pacere's Torquati. There are doubtless many home internal migrations within this kingdom that want to be better understood. Witness those vast flocks of hen chaffinches that appear with us in the winter without hardly any cocks among them. Now, was there a due proportion of each sex? It should seem very improbable that any one district should produce such numbers of these little birds, and much more when only half of the species appears. Therefore, we may conclude that the Fringili Cailebes, for some good purposes, have a peculiar migration of their own, in which the sex is part. Nor should it seem so wonderful that the intercourse of sexes in this species of birds should be interrupted in winter, since in many animals, and particularly in bucks and does, the sex is heard separately, except at the season when commerce is necessary for the continuance of the breed. For this matter of the chaffinches, see Fauna Suechica, page 85, and Systema Naturae, page 318. I see every winter vast flights of hen chaffinches, but none of cocks. Your method of accounting for the periodical motions of the British singing birds, or birds of flight, is a very probable one, since the matter of food is a great regulator of the actions and proceedings of the brute creation. There is but one that can be set in competition with it, and that is love. But I cannot quite acquiesce with you in one circumstance, when you advance that when they have thus feasted, they again separate into small parties of five or six, and get the best fare they can within a certain district, having no inducement to go in quest of fresh turned earth. Now, if you mean that the business of congregating is quite at an end from the conclusion of wheat sowing to the season of barley and oats, it is not the case with us. For larks and chaffinches, and particularly linets, flock and congregate as much in the very dead of winter, as when the husbandman is busy with his plows and harrows. Sure, there can be no doubt but that wood cocks and field-fairs leave us in the spring, in order to cross the seas, and to retire to some districts more suitable to the purpose of breeding, that the former pair before they retire, and that the hens are forward with egg. I myself, when I was a sportsman, have often experienced. It cannot indeed be denied, but that now and then we hear of a woodcock nest or young birds discovered in some part or other of this island, but then they are always mentioned as rarities, and somewhat out of the common course of things. But as to red wings and field-fairs, no sportsman or naturalist has ever yet, that I could hear, have found the nest or young of these species in any part of these kingdoms, and I the more admire at this instance as extraordinary, since to all appearances the same food in summer as well as in winter might support them here, which maintains their congeners, the blackbirds and thrushes, did they choose to stay the summer through. From hence it appears that it is not food alone which determines some species of birds with regard to their stay or departure. Field-fairs and red wings disappear sooner or later, according as the warm weather comes on earlier or later, for I will remember after that dreadful winter of 1739 to 40 that cold northeast winds continued to blow on through April and May and that these kinds of birds, what few remained of them, did not depart as usual, but were seen lingering about till the beginning of June. The best authority that we can have for the nidification of the birds above mentioned in any district is the testimony of fornists that have written professedly the natural history of particular countries. Now, as to the field-fair, Linnaeus in his fauna Suikika says of it that Maximus in Arboribus nidificat, readers note, it nests in the tallest trees, end readers note, and of the red wing he says in the same place that nidificat in medius arbusculis, sieve sepibus, oversex carulio viridia maculis nigris varius, readers note, it nests in middle-sized bushes or hedges, and it lays six eggs, blue-green in colour with black spots, end readers note. Hence, he may be assured that field-fairs and red wings breed in Sweden. Skopoli says in his anus primus of the woodcock that nupta ad nos veinit curca equinoctium vernali, readers note, it comes to us already mated around the spring equinox, end readers note, meaning in Tyrol, of which he is a native, and afterwards he adds nidificat in paludibus alpinus, overponit tres quinquit, readers note, it nests in alpine swampy woodland, laying from three to five eggs, end readers note. It does not appear from Kramer that woodcocks breed at all in Austria, but he says, aivis haic septentrion alium, provinciarum, aistivo tempori incola est, ubi plerunque nidificat, apropin quante haiemi astroliores provincias petit, hink curca plenilunium mensis octobris, plerunque ostrium transmigrat, tunk ruusus curca plenilunium patissimum mensis martie, per ostrium matrimonio juncta ad septentrionales provincias radit, readers note, the bird inhabits northern parts in the summer, where it breeds in large numbers, with the approach of winter it seeks southern countries, from where it crosses Austria in large numbers at the October full moon, again, if possible, about the time of March full moon, it comes back again through Austria, already mated to the northern parts, end readers note. For the whole passage, which I have abridged, seolencus et cetera, page 351, this seems to be a full proof of the migration of woodcocks, though little is proved concerning the place of breeding. P.S. there fell in the county of Rutland in three weeks of this present very wet weather, seven inches and a half of rain, which is more than has fallen in any three weeks for these thirty years past in that part of the world. A mean quantity in that county for one year is twenty inches and a half. Letter nine to the Honourable Danes Barrington, Fifield, near Andover, February the 12th, 1771. Dear sir, you are, I know, no great friend to migration, and the well-attested accounts from various parts of the kingdom to justify you in your suspicions that at least many of the swallow-kind do not leave us in the winter but lay themselves up like insects and bats in a torpid state to slumber away the more uncomfortable months till the return of the sun and fine weather awakens them. But then we must not, I think, deny migration in general because migration certainly does subsist in some places as my brother in Andalusia has fully informed me. Of the motions of these birds he has ocular demonstration for many weeks together, both spring and fall, during which periods myriads of the swallow-kind traverse the straits from north to south and from south to north according to the season, and these vast migrations consist not only of herondines but of bee birds, hoopos, or opendolos or golden thrushes, et cetera, et cetera, and also many of our soft-billed summer birds of passage and, moreover, of birds which never leave us, such as all the various sorts of hawks and kites. Old Belon, two hundred years ago, gives a curious account of the incredible armies of hawks and kites which he saw in the springtime traversing the Thracian Bosphorus from Asia to Europe. Besides the above mentioned, he remarks that the procession is swelled by whole troops of eagles and vultures. Now it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa should retreat before the sun as it advances and retire to milder regions and especially birds of prey whose blood being heated with hot animal food are more impatient of a sultry climate. But then I cannot help wondering why kites and hawks and such hardy birds as are known to defile the severity of England and even of Sweden and all North Europe should want to migrate from the south of Europe and be dissatisfied with the winters of Andalusia. It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid on the difficulty and hazard that birds must run in their migrations by reason of vast oceans, crosswinds, etc. Because if we reflect, a bird may travel from England to the equator without launching out and exposing itself to boundless seas, and that by crossing the water at Dover and again at Gibraltar. And I with the more confidence advance this obvious remark because my brother has always found that some of his birds and particularly the swallow kind are very sparing of their pains in crossing the Mediterranean for when arrived at Gibraltar they do not, ranged in figure, wedge their way and set forth their airy caravan high overseas, flying and over lands with mutual wing easing their flight, Milton. But scout and hurry along in little detached parties of six or seven in a company and sweeping low just over the surface of the land and water direct their course to the opposite continent to the narrowest passage they can find. They usually slope across the bay to the south-west and so pass over opposite to Tangier which it seems is the narrowest space. In former letters we have considered whether it was probable that woodcocks in the moon-shiny nights cross the German ocean from Scandinavia as a proof that birds of less speed may pass that sea, considerable as it is, I shall relate the following incident which, though mentioned to have happened so many years ago, was strictly matter of fact. As some people were shooting in the Parish of Trotten in the county of Sussex they killed a duck in that dreadful winter of 1708-09 with a silver colour about its neck on which were engraven the arms of the King of Denmark. This anecdote, the rector of Trotten at that time has often told to a near relation of mine and to the best of my remembrance the collar was in the possession of the rector. Note, I have read a like anecdote of a swan. End note. At present I do not know anybody near the seaside that will take the trouble to remark at what time of the moon woodcocks first come. If I lived near the sea myself I would soon tell you more of the matter. One thing I used to observe when I was a sportsman that there were times in which woodcocks were so sluggish and sleepy that they would drop again when flushed just before the spaniels. Nay, just at the muzzle of a gun that had been fired at them whether this strange laziness was the effect of a recent fatiguing journey I shall not presume to say. Nightingales not only never reached Northumberland and Scotland but also as I have been always told Devonshire and Cornwall. In those two last counties we cannot attribute the failure of them to the want of warmth. The defect in the west is rather a presumptive argument that these birds come over to us from the continent at the narrowest passage and do not stroll so far westward. Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks do not dust. I think they do, and if they do whether they wash also. The allorda pretensis of Ray was the poor dupe that was educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter of October last. Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring oozle for Mr. Tunstall during their autumn visit but I will endeavour to get him one when they call on us again in April. I am glad that you and that gentleman saw my Andalusian birds. I hope they answered your expectation. Royston, or grey crows, are winter birds that come much about the same time with the woodcocks. They, like the field fair and redwing, have no apparent reason for migration for as they fare in the winter like their congeners, so might they in all appearance. In the summer was not tenant when a boy mistaken. Did he not find a missile-thrush his nest, and take it for the nest of a field fair? The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, Enus Rayee, is the last winter bird of passage which appears with us and is not seen till towards the end of November. About twenty years ago they abounded in the district of Selbourn, and strings of them were seen morning and evening that reached a mile or more, but since the beech and woods have been greatly thinned they are much decreased in number. The ring-dove, Palumbus Rayee, stays with us the whole year and breeds several times through the summer. Before I received your letter of October last, I had just remarked in my journal that the trees were unusually green. This uncommon verdure lasted on late into November and may be accounted for from a late spring, a cool and moist summer, but more particularly from vast armies of chafers or tree-beetles which in many places reduced whole woods to a leafless, naked state. These trees shot again at mid-summer and then retained their foliage till very late in the year. My musical friend at whose house I am now visiting has tried all the owls that are his near-neighbours with a pitch-pipe set at concert pitch and finds they all hoot in B-flat. He will examine the nightingales next spring. I am, etc., etc. Letter 10 to the Honourable Danes Barrington Selbourn, August the First 1771 Dear sir, from what follows it will appear that neither owls nor cuckoos keep to one note. A friend remarks that many, most of his owls, hoot in B-flat, but that one went almost half a note below A. The pipe he tried their notes by was a common half-ground pitch-pipe, such as masters used the tuning of harpsichords. It was the common London pitch. A neighbour of mine who is said to have a nice ear remarks that the owls about this village hoot in three different keys, in G-flat or F-sharp, in B-flat and A-flat. He heard two hooting to each other, the one in A-flat and the other in B-flat. Query, do these different notes proceed from different species or only from various individuals? The same person finds upon trial that the note of the cuckoo of which we have but one species varies in different individuals. For about Selbourne Wood he found they were mostly in D. He heard two sing together, the one in D, the other in D-sharp who made a disagreeable concert. He afterwards heard one in D-sharp and about Walmer Forest some in C. As to nightingales he says that their notes are so short and their transitions are so rapid that he cannot well ascertain their key. Perhaps in a cage and in a room their notes may be more distinguishable. This person has tried to settle the notes of Swift and of several other small birds but cannot bring them to any criterion. As I have often remarked that redwings are some of the first birds that suffer with us in severe weather it is no wonder at all they retreat from Scandinavian winters and much more the Ordo Grally who, all to a bird forsake the northern parts of Europe at the approach of winter. Read this note we may be unable to find even one of them making its home among us for as in summer they cannot live in southern lands because of the lack of worms and the parched soil so for the same reason they cannot live in cold regions End reader's note So says Ekmark the Swede in his ingenious little treatise called Negratio Nezavium which by all means you ought to read while your thoughts run on the subject of migration. Birds may be so circumstanced as to be obliged to migrate in one country and not in another but the grally which procure the food from marshes and boggy grounds must in winter forsake the more northerly parts of Europe or perish for want of food. I am glad you are making inquiries from Linnaeus concerning the woodcock it is expected of him that he should be able to account for the motions and manner of life of the animals of his own fauna. Fornists, as you observe are too apt to acquiesce in bare descriptions and a few synonyms the reason is plain because all that may be done at home in a man's study but the investigation of the life and conversation of animals is a concern of much more trouble and difficulty and is not to be attained but by the active and inquisitive and by those that reside much in the country. Foreign Systematics are, I observe, much too vague in their specific differences particularly constituted by one or two particular marks the rest of the description running in general terms but our countryman, the excellent Mr. Ray is the only describer that conveys some precise idea in every term or word maintaining his superiority over his followers and imitators in spite of the advantage of fresh discoveries and modern information. At this distance of years it is not in my power to recollect at what periods woodcocks used to be sluggish or alert when I was a sportsman but upon my mentioning this circumstance to a friend he thinks he has observed them to be remarkably listless against snowy foul weather if this should be the case then the inaptitude for flying arises only from an eagerness for food as cheaper observed to be very intent on grazing against stormy wet evenings I am etc etc Letter 11 to the Honourable Danes Barrington Selborne, February the 8th, 1772 Dear Sir when I ride about in the winter and see such prodigious flocks of various kinds of birds I cannot help admiring at these congregations and wishing that it was in my power to account for those appearances almost peculiar to the season the two great motives which regulate the proceedings of the brute creation are love and hunger the former incites animals to perpetuate their kind the latter induces them to preserve individuals whether either of these should seem to be the ruling passion in the matter of congregating is to be considered as to love that is out of the question at a time of the year when that soft passion is not indulged besides during the amorous season such a jealousy prevailed between the male birds that they can hardly bear to be together in the same hedge or field most of the singing and elation of spirits of that time seem to me the effect of rivalry and emulation and it is to this spirit of jealousy that I chiefly attribute the equal dispersion of birds in the spring over the face of the country now as to the business of food as these animals are actuated by instinct to hunt for necessary food they should not one would suppose proud together in pursuit of sustenance at a time when it is most likely to fail yet such associations do take place in hard weather chiefly thicken as the severity increases as some kind of self-interest and self-defence is no doubt the motive for the proceedings may it not arise from the helplessness of the estate in such rigorous seasons as men crowds together when under great calamities though they know not why perhaps approximation may dispel some degree of cold and a crowd may make each individual appear safer from the ravages of birds of prey and other dangers when I see how much congenerous birds love to congregate I am the more struck when I see incongruous ones in such strict amity if we do not much wonder to see a flock of rooks usually attended by a train of doors yet it is strange that the former should so frequently have a flight of starlings for their satellites is it because rooks have a more discerning sense than their attendants and can lead them to spots more productive of food anatomists say that rooks by reason of two large nerves which run down between the eyes into the upper mandible have a more delicate feeling in their beaks than other round-billed birds and can grop for their meat when out of sight perhaps then their associates attend them on the motive of interest as greyhounds wait on the motions of their finders and as lions are said to do on the yelpings of jackals lapwings and starlings sometimes associate letter 12 to the Honourable Danes Barrington March the 9th 1772 Dear sir, as a gentleman and myself were walking on the 4th of last November round the sea-panks at New Haven near the mouth of the Lewis River in pursuit of natural knowledge we were surprised to see three house swallows gliding very swiftly by us that morning was rather chilly with the wind at northwest but the tenor of the weather for some time before had been delicate and the noons remarkably warm from this incident and from repeated accounts which I meet with I am more and more induced to believe that many of the swallow-kinds do not depart from this island but lay themselves up in holes and caverns and do insect-like and bat-like come forth at mild times and then retire again to their latebri nor make I the least doubt but that if I lived at New Haven Seaford, Brighthamstone or any of those towns near the chulk cliffs of the Sussex coast by proper observations I should see swallows stirring at periods of the winter when the noons were soft and inviting and the sun warm and invigorating and I am the more of this opinion from what I have remarked during some of our late springs that though some swallows did make their appearance about the usual time that is the 13th or 14th of April yet meeting with an harsh reception and blustering cold northeast winds they immediately withdrew absconding for several days till the weather gave them better encouragement Letter 13 to the honourable Danes Barrington April 12th, 1772 Dear sir, while I was in Sussex last autumn my residence was at the village near Lewis from whence I had formally the pleasure of writing to you. On the 1st of November I remarked that the old tortoise formerly mentioned began first to dig the ground in order to the forming of its hibenaculum which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of hepaticus it scrapes out the ground with its fall feet and throws it up over its back with its hind but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow little exceeding the hour hand of a clock and suitable to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in performing one feet of copulation nothing can be more assiduous than this creature night and day in scooping the earth and forcing its great body into the cavity but as the noons of that season proved unusually warm and sunny it was continually interrupted and called forth by the heat in the middle of the day and though I continued there till the 13th of November yet the work remained unfinished harsher weather and frosty mornings would have quickened its operations no part of its behaviour ever struck me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses with regard to rain for though it has a shell that would secure it against the wheel of a loaded cart yet does it discover as much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire shuffling away on the first sprinklings and running its head up in a corner if attended to it becomes an excellent weather-glass for as sure as it walks elate and as it were on tiptoe feeding with great earnestness in a morning so sure will it rain before night it is totally a diurnal animal as never pretends to stir after it becomes dark the tortoise like other reptiles has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs and can refrain from eating as well as breathing for a great part of the year when first awakened it eats nothing nor again in the autumn before it retires through the height of the summer it feeds voraciously devouring all the food that comes in its way I was much taken with its sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices for as soon as the good old lady comes in sight on it for more than thirty years it hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity but remains inattentive to strangers thus not only the ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib Isaiah chapter 1 verse 3 but the most abject reptile and torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it and is touched with the feelings of gratitude I am etc etc p.s. in about three days after I left Sussex the tortoise retired into the ground under the Hepatica letter 14 to the Honourable Danes Barrington, Selbourn, March the 26th 1773 Dear sir, the more I reflect on the stalker of animals the more I am astonished at its effects nor is the violence of this affection more wonderful than the shortness of its duration thus every hen is in her turn the verago of the yard in proportion to the helplessness of her brood and will fly in the face of a dog or sow in defence of those chickens which in a few weeks she will drive before her with relentless cruelty this affection sublimes the passions quickens the invention and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation thus an hen just become a mother is no longer that placid bird she used to be but with feathers standing on end wings hovering and clocking note she runs about like one possessed the lambs will throw themselves in the way of the greatest danger in order to avert it from their progeny thus a partridge will tumble along before a sportsman in order to draw away the dogs from her helpless covey in the time of nidification the most feeble birds will assault the most rapacious all the herondines of a village are up in arms at the site of an hawk whom they will persecute till he leaves that district a very exact observer has often remarked the ravens nesting in the rock of Gibraltar would suffer no vulture or eagle to rest near their station but would drive them from the hill with an amazing fury even the blue thrush at the season of breeding would dart out from the clefts of the rocks to chase away the kestrel or the sparrowhawk if you stand near the nest of a bird that has young she will not be induced to betray them by an inadvertent fondness that will wait about at a distance with meeting her mouth for an hour together should I father corroborate what I have advanced above by some anecdotes which I probably may have mentioned before in conversation yet you will I trust pardon the repetition for the sake of illustration the flycatcher of the zoology the stopperola of ray builds every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house a pair of these little birds had one year inadvertently placed their nest on a naked bow perhaps in a shady time not being aware of the inconvenience that followed but an hot, sunny season coming on before the brood was half fledged the reflection of the wall became insupportable and must inevitably have destroyed the tender young had not, affection suggested an expedient and prompted the parent birds to hover over the nest all the hotter hours while with wings expanded and mouths gaping for breath they screened off the heat from their suffering offspring a further instance I once saw of notable sagacity in a willow wren which had built in a bank in my fields this bird a friend and myself had observed as she sat in her nest but were particularly careful not to disturb her though we saw she eyed us with some degree of jealousy some days after as we passed that way we were desirous of remarking how this brood went on but no nest could be found till I happened to take up a large bowl of long green moss as it were carelessly thrown over the nest in order to dodge the eye of any impertinent intruder a still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and instinct occurred to me one day as my people were pulling off the lining of a hot bed in order to add some fresh dung from out of the side of this bed leapt an animal with great agility that made a most grotesque figure nor was it without great difficulty that it could be taken with a large white-bullied field-mouse with three or four young clinging to her teats by their mouths and feet it was amazing that the desultory and rapid motions of this dam should not oblige her litter to quit their hold especially when it appeared that they were so young as to be both naked and blind to these instances of tender attachment many more of which might be daily discovered by those that are studious of nature may be opposed that rage of affection that monstrous perversion of the atorga which induces some females of the brute creation to devour their young because their owners have handled them too freely or removed them from place to place swine and sometimes the more gentle race of dogs and cats are guilty of this horrid and preposterous murder when I hear now and then of an abandoned mother that destroys her offspring I am not so much amazed since reason perverted and the bad passions let loose are capable of any enormity but why the parental feelings of brutes that usually flow in one most uniform tenor should sometimes be so extravagantly diverted I leave to abler philosophers than myself to determine I am etc letter 15 to the honorable Danes Barrington Selbourne July the 8th 1773 Dear sir, some young men went down lately to a pond near the verge of Malmoth forest to hunt flappers or young wild ducks many of which they caught and among the rest some very minute yet well fledged wild fowls alive which upon examination I found to be teals I did not know till then that teals ever bred in the south of England and was much pleased with the discovery this I look upon as a great stroking in natural history we have had ever since I can remember a pair of white owls that constantly breed under the eaves of this church as I have paid good attention to the manner of life of these birds during their season of breeding which lasts the summer through the following remarks may not perhaps be unacceptable about an hour before sunset for then the mice begin to run they sally forth in quest of prey and hunt all round the hedges of meadows and small enclosures for them which seem to be their only food in this irregular country we can stand on an eminence and see them beat the fields over like a setting dog and often drop down in the grass or corn I have minited these birds with my watch for an hour together and have found that they return to their nests the one or the other of them about once in five minutes reflecting at the same time on the adroitness that every animal is possessed of as regards the well-being of itself and offspring but a piece of address which they show when they return loaded should not I think be passed over in silence as they take their prey with their claws so they carry it in their claws to their nest but as the feet are necessary in their ascent under the tiles they constantly perch first on the roof of the chancel and shift the mouse from their claws to their bill that the feet may be at liberty to take hold of the plate on the wall as they are rising under the eaves white owls seem not in this I am not positive to hoot at all all that clamorous hooting appears to me to come from the wood kinds the white owl does indeed snore and hiss in a tremendous manner and these menaces well answer the intention of intimidating for I have known a whole village up in arms on such an occasion imagining the churchyard to be full of goblins and spectres white owls also often scream horribly as they fly along from this screaming probably arose the common people's imaginary species of screech owl which they superstitiously think attends the windows of dying persons the plumage of the remedies of the wings of every species of owl that I have yet examined is remarkably soft and pliant perhaps it may be necessary that the wings of these birds should not make much resistance or rushing that they may be enabled to steal through the air unheard upon a nimble and watchful quarry while I am talking of owls it may not be improper to mention what I was told by a gentleman of the county of wilts as they were grubbing a vast hollow pollard ash that had been the mention of owls for centuries he discovered at the bottom a massive matter that at first he could not account for after examination he found it was a conjury of the bones of mice and perhaps of birds and bats that had been heaping together for ages being cast up in pellets out of the crops of many generations of inhabitants for owls cast up the bones, fur and feathers of what they devour after the manner of hawks he believes, he told me, that there were bushels of this kind of substance when brown owls hoot their throats swell as big as an hen's egg I have known an owl of this species live a full year without any water perhaps the case may be the same with all birds of prey when owls fly they stretch out their legs behind them as a balance to their large heavy heads for as most nocturnal birds have large eyes and ears they must have large heads to contain them large eyes, I presume are necessary to collect every ray of light and large concave ears to command the smallest degree of sound or noise I am etc the hearing deans are a most inoffensive, harmless, entertaining social and useful tribe of birds they touch no fruit in our gardens, delight, all except one species in attaching themselves to our houses, amuse us with their migrations, songs and marvellous agility and clear our outlets from the annoyance of gnats and other troublesome insects some districts in the south seas near Guiaquil are desolated it seems by the infinite swarms of venomous mosquitoes which fill the air and render those coasts insupportable it would be worth inquiring whether any species of hearing deans can be found in those regions whoever contemplates the myriads of insects that sport in the sunbeams of a summer evening in this country will soon be convinced to what a degree our atmosphere would be choked with them was it not for the friendly interposition of the swallow tribe many species of birds have their particular lice but the hearing deans alone seem to be annoyed with the dipterous insects which infest every species and are so large in proportion to themselves that they must be truly irksome and injurious to them these are the hippobosque herundiness with narrow subulated wings abounding in every nest and are hatched by the warmth of the bird's own body during incubation and crawl about under its feathers a species of them is familiar to horsemen in the south of England under the name of forest fly and to some of side fly from its running sideways like a crab it creeps under the tails and about the groins of the horses which at their first coming out of the north are rendered half frantic by the tickling sensation while our own breed little regards them the curious romur discovered the large eggs or rather pupae of these flies as big as the flies themselves which he hatched in his own bosom any person that will take the trouble to examine the old nests of either species of swallows may find in them the black shining cases of the pupae of these insects but for other particulars too long for this place we refer the reader to l'histoire d'insect of that admirable entomologist the end of section 8 of Gilbert White's the natural history of cell-borne section 9 of Gilbert White's natural history of cell-borne this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to find out how to volunteer please contact LibriVox.org the natural history of cell-borne by Gilbert White Letters 16 to 20 to the Honourable Danes Barrington Letters 16 to the Honourable Danes Barrington Cell-borne November the 20th 1773 Dear sir, in obedience to your injunctions I sit down to give you some account of your house-martin or marthlet and if my monography of this little domestic and familiar bird should happen to meet with your approbation I may probably soon extend my inquiries to the rest of the British Hyrandonese the Swallow, the Swift and the Bank Martin A few house-martins begin to appear about the 16th of April usually some few days later than the Swallow for some time after they appear the Hyrandonese in general pay no attention to the business of communication but play and sport about either to recruit from the fatigue of their journey if they do migrate at all or else that their blood may recover its true tone and texture after it has been so long benumbed by the severities of winter about the middle of May if the weather be fine the Martin begins to think in earnest of providing a mansion for its family the crust or shell of this nest seems to be formed of such dirt or loam as comes most firmly to hand and is tempered and wrought together with little bits of broken straws to render it tough and tenacious as this bird often builds against a perpendicular wall without any projecting ledge under it requires its utmost efforts to get to the first foundation firmly fixed so that it may safely carry the superstructure on this occasion the bird not only clings with its claws but partly supports itself by strongly inclining its tail against the wall making that a fulcrum and thus steadied it works and plaster the materials into the face of the brick or stone but then let this work may not while it is soft and green pull itself down by its own weight the provident architect has prudence and forbearance enough not to advance her work too fast but by building only in the morning and by dedicating the rest of the day to food and amusement gives it sufficient time to dry and harden about half an inch seems to be a sufficient layer for a day thus careful workmen when they build mud walls informed at first perhaps by this lithe bird raise but a moderate layer at a time and then desist lest the work should become top heavy and so be ruined by its own weight by this method in about ten or twelve days is formed a hemispheric nest with a small aperture towards the top strong compact and warm and perfectly fitted for all the purposes for which it was intended but then nothing is more common than for the house sparrow as soon as the shell is finished to season it as its own to eject the owner and to line it after its own manner after so much labour is bestowed in erecting a mansion as nature seldom works in vain martins will breed on for several years together in the same nest where it happens to be well sheltered from the injuries of weather the shed or crust of the nest is a sort of rustic work full of knobs and protuberances on the outside nor is the inside of those that I have examined smoothed with any exactness at all but is rendered soft and warm and fit for incubation by a lining of small straws grasses and feathers and sometimes by a bed of moss interwoven with wool in this nest they tread or engender frequently during the time of building trees from three to five white eggs at first when the young are hatched and are in a naked and helpless condition the parent birds with tender acidity carry out what comes away from their young was it not for this affectionate cleanliness the nestlings would soon be burnt up and destroyed in so deep and hollow a nest by their own caustic excrement in the quadruped creation the same neat precaution is made use of particularly young dogs and cats where the dams lick away what proceeds from their young but in birds there seems to be a particular provision that the dung of nestlings is enveloped into a tough kind of jelly and therefore is the easier conveyed off without soiling or daubing yet as nature is cleanly in all her ways the young perform this office for themselves in a little time by thrusting their tails out at the aperture of their nest as the young of small birds are full growth they soon become impatient of confinement and sit all day with their heads out at the orifice where the dams by clinging to the nest supply them with food from morning to night for a time the young are fed on the wing by their parents but the feat is done by so quick and almost imperceptible of slight that a person must have attended very exactly to the emotions before he would be able to perceive it as soon as the young are able to shift for themselves the dams they immediately turn their thoughts to the business of a second brood while the first flight, shaken off and rejected by their nurses congregate in great flocks and other birds that are seen clustering and hovering on sunny mornings and evenings round towers and steeples and on the roofs of churches and houses these congregations usually begin to take place about the first week in August and therefore we may conclude that by that time the first flight is pretty well over the young of this species do not quit their abodes altogether but the more forward birds get abroad some days before the rest these, approaching the eaves of buildings and playing about before them make people think that several old ones attend one nest they are often capricious in fixing on a nest in place beginning many edifices and leaving them unfinished but when once a nest is completed in a sheltered place it serves for several seasons the already finished house get the start in hatching of those that build new by ten days or a fortnight these industrious artificers are at their labours in the long days before four in the morning when they fix their materials they plaster them on with their chins moving their heads with a quick vibratory motion they dip and wash as they fly sometimes in very hot weather but not so frequently as swallows it has been observed that martins usually build to a north east west aspect that the heat of the sun may not crack and destroy their nests but instances are also remembered where they bred for many years in vast abundance in an hot stifled in-yard against a wall facing to the south birds in general are wise in their choice of situation but in this neighbourhood every summer is seen a strong proof to the contrary at an house without eaves in an exposed district where some martins build year by year in the corners of the windows but as the corners of these windows which face to the south-east and south-west are too shallow the nests are washed down every hard rain and yet these birds drudge on to no purpose from summer to summer without changing their aspect or house it is a piteous sight to see them labouring when half their nest is washed away and bringing dirt see Sarkiri ruinas Virgil readers note to repair the ruins of their fallen race and readers note thus is instinct a most wonderful unequal faculty in some instances so much above reason in other respects so far below it martins love to frequent towns especially if there are great lakes and rivers at hand they even affect the close air of London and I have not only seen them nesting in the borough but even in the Strand and Fleet Street but then it was obvious from the dinginess of their aspect that their feathers partook of the filth of that city atmosphere martins are by far the least agile of the four species their wings and tails are short and therefore they are not capable of such surprising turns and quick and glancing evolutions as the swallow accordingly they make use of a placid section in a middle region of the air seldom mounting to any great height and never sweeping long together over the surface of the ground or water they do not wander far for food but affect sheltered districts over some lake or under some hanging wood or in some hollow veil especially in windy weather they breed the latest of all the swallow kind in 1772 they had nestlings on to October the 21st and are never without unfledged young they are late as mickleness as the summer declines the congregating flocks increase in numbers daily by the constant accession of the second broods till at last they swarm in myriads upon myriads round the villages on the Thames darkening the face of the sky as they frequent the aides of that river where they roost they retire, the bulk of them I mean in vast flocks together about the beginning of October a considerable flight in this neighbourhood for one day or two as late as November the 3rd and 6th after they were supposed to have been gone for more than a fortnight they therefore withdraw with us the latest of any species unless these birds are very short lived indeed or unless they do not return to the district where they are bred they must undergo vast devastations somehow and somewhere for the birds that return yearly bear no manner of proportion to the birds retire house martins are distinguished from their congeners by having their legs covered with soft downy feathers down to their toes they are no songsters but twitter in a pretty inward soft manner in their nests during the time of breeding they are often greatly molested with fleas I am etc letter 17 to the honourable Danes Barrington Ringma near Lewis December the 9th 1773 Dear sir, I received your last favour just as I was setting out for this place and am pleased to find that my monography met with your approbation my remarks are the result of many years' observation and are I trust true on the whole though I do not pretend to say that they are perfectly void of mistake or that a more nice observer ought not make many additions since subjects of this kind are inexhaustible if you think my letter worthy of the notice of your respectable society you are at liberty to lay it before them and they will consider it I hope as it was intended as an humble attempt to promote a more minute enquiry into natural history into the life and conversation of animals perhaps hereafter I may be induced to take the house swallow under consideration and from that proceed the rest of the British heron deans though I have now travelled the Sussex Downs upward of thirty years yet I still investigate that chain of majestic mountains with fresh admiration year by year and think I see new beauties every time I traverse it this range which runs from Chichester Eastwood as far as Eastbourne is about sixty miles in length and is called the South Downs properly speaking only round Lewis as you pass along you command a noble view of the wild or wheeled on one hand and the broad Downs and sea on the other Mr Ray used to visit a family just at the foot of these hills and was so ravished with the prospect from Plumpton Plain near Lewis that he mentions those escapes in his Wisdom of God in the works of the creation with the utmost satisfaction and thinks them equal to anything he had seen in the finest parts of Europe for my own part I think there is somewhat peculiarly sweet and amusing in the shapely figured aspect of chalk hills in preference to those of stone which are rugged, broken, abrupt and shapeless perhaps I may be singular in my opinion and not so happy as to convey to you the same idea but I never contemplate these mountains without thinking I perceive somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings and smooth fungus-like protuberances their fluted sides and regular hollows and slopes that carry at once the air of vegetative dilation and expansion or was there ever a time when these immense masses of calcareous matter were drawn into fermentation by some adventitious moisture were raised and leavened into such shapes by some plastic power and so made to swell and heave their broad backs into the sky so much above the less animated clay of the wild below by what I can guess from the ad-measurements of the hills that have been taken round my house I should suppose that these hills surmount the wild at an average at about the rate of 500 feet one thing is very remarkable as to the sheep from the westward till you get to the river Addu all the flocks have horns and smooth white faces and white legs and a hornless sheep is rarely to be seen but as soon as you pass the river eastward and mount Beading Hill all the flocks at once become hornless or as they call them pole sheep and have more ever black faces with a white tuft of wool on their foreheads and speckled and spotted legs so that you would think that the flocks of Laban were pasturing on one side of the stream and the variegated breed of his son-in-law Jacob were cantoned along on the other and this diversity holds good respectively on each side from the valley of Bramble and Beading to the eastward and westward all the whole length of the downs if you talk with the shepherds on this subject they tell you that the case has been so from time immemorial and smile at your simplicity if you ask them whether the situation of these two different breeds might not be reversed however an intelligent friend of mine near Chichester is determined to try the experiment and has this autumn at the hazard of being laughed at introduced a parcel of black-faced hornless rams among his horned western ews the black-faced pole sheep have the shortest legs and the finest wool as I had hardly ever before travelled these downs at so late I was determined to keep as sharp a look-out as possible so near the southern coast with respect to the summer short-winged birds of passage we make great inquiries concerning the withdrawing of the swallow-kind without examining enough into the causes why this tribe is never to be seen in winter for Entrenu the disappearing of the latter is more marvellous than that of the former and much more unaccountable friends, if they please are certainly capable of migration and yet no doubt are often found in a torpid state but red-starts, nightingales, white-throats black-caps, etc. are very ill-provided for long flights have never been once found as I ever heard of in a torpid state and yet can never be supposed in such troops from year to year to dodge and elude the eyes of the curious which from day to day discern the other small birds that are known to abide our winters here but not withstanding all my care I saw nothing like a summer bird of passage and what is more strange not one wheat ear though they are bound so in the autumn as to be a considerable perquisite to the shepherds that take them and though many are to be seen to my knowledge all the winter through in many parts of the south of England intelligent shepherds tell me that some few of these birds appear on the downs in March and then withdraw to breed probably in warrens and stone quarries now and then a nest is plowed up in a fallow on the downs under a furrow but it is thought a rarity at the time of wheat harvest they begin to be taken in great numbers are sent for sale in vast quantities to Bright Elmstone and Tumbridge and appear at the tables of all the gentry that entertain the shepherds about Myclumus they retire and are seen no more till March though these birds are when in season in great plenty on the south downs round Lewis yet at Eastbourne which is the eastern extremity of those downs they are bound much more one thing is very remarkable that though in the height of the season so many hundreds of dozens are taken yet they never are seen to flock and it is a rare thing to see at a time so that there must be a perpetual flitting and constant progressive succession it does not appear that any wheatiers are taken the westward of Horton bridge which stands on the river Arran I did not fail to look particularly after my new migration of ring oozles and to take notice whether they continued on the downs to this season of the year as I had formally remarked them in the month of October all the way from Chichester to Lewis there were any shrubs and covered but not one bird of this sort came within my observation I only saw a few larks and windchats some rooks and several kites and buzzards about mid-summer a flight of cross-bills comes to the pine groves about this house but never makes any long stay the old tortoise that I have mentioned in a former letter still continues in this garden and retired underground about the 20th of November and came out again for one day on the 30th it lies now buried in a wet swampy border under a wall facing to the south and is enveloped at present in mud and mire here is a large rookery round this house the inhabitants of which seem to get their livelihood very easily for they spend the greatest part of the day on their nest trees when the weather is mild these rooks retire every evening where they only call by the way as they are going to roost in deep woods at the dawn of day they always revisit their nest trees and are preceded a few minutes by a flight of doors that act as it were as their harbingers I am etc letter 18 to the Honourable Danes Barrington Selborne January the 29th 1774 Dear sir the house swallow or chimney swallow is undoubtedly the first comeer of all the British heron deans and appears in general on or about the 13th of April as I have remarked from many years' observation not but now and then a straggler is seen much earlier and in particular when I was a boy I observed a swallow for a whole day together on a sunny warm shrove Tuesday which day could not fall out later than the middle of March and often happened early in February it is worth remarking that these birds are seen first about lakes and millponds and it is also very particular that if these early visitors happen to find frost and snow as was the case of the two dreadful springs of 1770 and 1771 they immediately withdraw for a time. A circumstance this much more in favour of hiding than migration since it is much more probable that a bird should retire to its hibernaculum just at hand then return for a week or two only to warmer latitudes the swallow though called the chimneyswallow by no means builds altogether in chimneys but often within barns and outhouses against the rafters and so she did in Virgil's time ante guerrilla quam tignis nidos suspendat hirundo reader's note before the swallow the chatterer hangs its nest from the rafters Virgil end note in Sweden she builds in barns and is called Laduswallow the barn swallow besides in the warmer parts of Europe there are no chimneys to houses except they are English built in these countries she constructs a nest in porches and gateways and galleries and open halls here and there a bird may affect some odd peculiar place as we have known a swallow built down the shaft of an old well which chalk has been formally drawn up for the purpose of manure but in general with us this hirundo breeds in chimneys and loves to haunt those stacks where there is a constant fire no doubt for the sake of warmth not that it can subsist in the immediate shaft where there is a fire but prefers one adjoining to that of the kitchen and disregards the perpetual smoke of that funnel as I have often observed with some degree of wonder five or six or more feet does this little bird begin to form her nest about the middle of May which consists, like that of the house Martin of a crust or shell composed of dirt or mud mixed with short pieces of straw to render it tough and permanent with this difference that whereas the shell of the Martin is nearly hemispheric that of the swallow is open at the top and like half a deep dish this nest is lined with fine grasses and feathers which are often collected wonderful is the address which this adroit bird shows all day long in ascending and descending with security through so narrow a pass when hovering over the mouth of the funnel the vibrations of her wings acting on the confined air occasion a rumbling like thunder it is not improbable that the dam submits to this inconvenient situation so low in the shaft in order to secure her broods from rapacious birds and particularly from owls which frequently fall down chimneys perhaps in attempting to get at these nestlings the swallow lays from four to six white eggs dotted with red specks and brings out her first brood about the last week in June or the first week in July the progressive method by which the young are introduced into life is very amusing first they emerge from the shaft with difficulty enough and often fall down into the rooms below for a day or so they are fed on the chimney top and then they are conducted to the dead leafless bow of some tree where sitting in a row they are attended with great aciduity and may then be called perches in a day or two more they become flyers but are still unable to take their own food therefore they play about near the place where the dams are hawking for flyers and when a mouthful is collected at a certain signal given the dam and the nestlings advance rising towards each other and meet at an angle the young one all the while uttering such a little quick note of gratitude and complacency that a person must have paid very little of regard to the wonders of nature that has not often remarked this feat the dam betakes herself immediately to the business of her second brood as soon as she is disengaged from her first which at once associates with the first broods of house martins and with them congregates clustering on sunny roofs, towers and trees and the gondo brings out her second brood towards the middle and end of August all the summer long is the swallower most instructive pattern of unwearied industry and affection for from morning to night while there is a family to be supported she spends the whole day in skimming close to the ground and exerting the most sudden turns and quick evolutions avenues and long walks under hedges and past your fields and moan meadows where cattle graze and delight especially if there are trees interspersed because in such spots insects most abound when a fly is taken a smart snap from her bill is heard resembling the noise at the shutting of a watch case but the motion of the mandibles are too quick for the eye the swallow probably the male bird is the ex-cubiter to house martins and other little birds announcing the approach of birds of prey for as soon as an hawk appears with a shrill alarming note all the swallows and martins about him who pursue in a body and buff it and strike their enemy until they have driven him from the village darting down from above on his back and rising in a perpendicular line in perfect security this bird also will sound the alarm and strike at cats when they climb on the roofs of houses or otherwise approach the nests each species of hirundo drinks as it flies along sipping the surface of the water on the wing by dropping into a pool for many times together in very hot weather house martins and bank martins dip and wash a little the swallow is a delicate songster and in soft sunny weather sings both perching and flying on trees in a kind of concert and on chimney pots is also a bold flyer ranging to distant towns and commons even in windy weather which the other species seem much to dislike frequenting exposed seaport towns and making little excursions over the salt water horsemen on wide towns are often closely attended by a little party of swallows for miles together which plays before and behind them sweeping around and collecting all the skulking insects that are roused by the trampling of the horses feet when the wind blows hard without this expedient they are often forced to settle to pick up their lurking prey the species feeds much on little colioptera as well as on gnats and flies and often settles on dug ground or paths for gravels to grind and digest its food before they depart for some weeks to a bird they forsake houses and chimneys and roost in trees and usually withdraw about the beginning of October there's some few stragglers may appear on at times till the first week in November some few pairs haunt the new and open streets of London next to the fields but do not enter like the house martin the close and crowded parts of the city both male and female are distinguished from their congeners by the length and forkiness of their tails they are undoubtedly the most nimble of all the species and when the male pursues the female in amorous chase they then go beyond their usual speed and exert a rapidity almost too quick for the eye to follow after this circumstantial detail of the life and discerning atorge of the swallow I shall add for your further amusement an anecdote or two not much in favour of her sagacity a certain swallow built for two years together on the handles of a pair of garden shears that were stuck up against the boards in an outhouse and therefore must have her nest spoiled whenever that implement was wanted and what is stranger still another bird of the same species built its nest on the wings and body of an owl that happened by accident to hang dead and dry from the rafter of a barn this owl with the nest on its wings and with eggs in the nest was brought as a curiosity worthy the most elegant private museum in great prison the owner struck with the oddity of the sight furnished the bringer with a large shell or conch desiring him to fix it just where the owl hung the person did as he was ordered and the following year a pair probably the same pair built their nest in the conch and laid their eggs the owl and the conch make a strange grotesque appearance and are not the least curious specimens in that wonderful collection of art and nature note Sir Ashton Leavers Museum end note thus is instinct in animals taken the least out of its way an undistinguishing limited faculty and blind to every circumstance that does not immediately respect self-preservation or lead at once to the propagation or support of their species I am with all respect etc etc letter 19 to the Honourable Danes Barrington Selbourne February the 14th 1774 Dear Sir I received your favour of the 8th and am pleased to find that you read my little history of the swallow with your usual candour nor was I 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 Herundo 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 Garula suits the swallow well who is a great songster but not the Martin which is rather a mute bird and when it sings is so inward as scarce to be heard besides if Tignum 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 and leaves and cornices as to the simile too much stress must not be laid on it yet the epithet Nigra speaks plainly in favor of the swallow whose back and wings are very black while the rump of the Martin is milk white its back and wings blue and all its under part white as snow nor can the clumsy motions comparatively clumsy of the Martin well represent the sudden and artful evolutions which Jeterna gave to her brother's chariot so as to elude the eager pursuit of the enraged enias the verb sonat also seems to imply a bird that is somewhat loquacious note and note in the same way a black swallow flies through the mansion of a rich lord and passes with her wings the lofty halls picking up little scraps of food and morsels for her chirping nestlings now she utters her call in the empty porticoes now about the wet swamps and readers note we have had a very wet autumn and winter so as to raise the springs to a pitch beyond anything since 1764 which was a remarkable year for floods and high waters the land springs which we call Lavance break out much on the downs of Sussex, Hampshire and Wiltshire the country people say when the Lavance rise corn will always be deer meaning that when the earth is so glutted with water as to send forth springs on the downs and uplands that the corn veils must be drowned and so it has proved for these 10 or 11 years past our land springs have never obtained more since the memory of man than during that period nor has there been known a greater scarcity of all sorts of grain considering the great improvements of modern husbandry such a run of wet seasons a century or two ago would I am persuaded have occasioned a famine therefore pamphlets and newspaper letters that talk of combinations tend to inflame and mislead since we must not expect plenty till Providence sends us more favourable seasons the wheat of last year all round this district and in the county of Rutland and elsewhere yields remarkably bad and our wheat on the ground by the continual late sudden vicissitudes from fierce frost to pouring rains looks poorly and the turnips rot very fast letter 20 to the honourable Danes Barrington sell-born February the 26th 1774 dear sir the sand martin or bank martin is by much the least of any of the British Herondines and as far as we have ever seen the smallest known Herundo though Bryson asserts that there is one much smaller and that is the Herundo Esculenta but it is much to be regretted that it is scarce possible for the observer to be so full and exact as he could wish in reciting the circumstances attending the life and conversation of this little bird since it is fairer nature at least in this part of the kingdom disclaiming all domestic attachments and haunting wild heaths and commons where there are large lakes while the other species especially the swallow and house martin are remarkably gentle and domesticated and never seem to think themselves safe but under the protection of man here in this parish in the sand pits and banks of the lakes of Walmer forest several colonies of these birds and yet they are never seen in the village nor do they at all frequent the cottages that are scattered about in that wild district the only instance I ever remember where this species haunts any building is at the town of bishops waltham in this county where many sand martins nestle and breed in the scaffold holes of the back wall of William of Wickham's stables but then this wall stands in a very sequestered and retired enclosure and faces upon a large and beautiful lake and indeed this species seems so to delight in large waters that no instance occurs of their abounding but near vast pools or rivers and in particular it has been remarked at least form in the banks of the Thames in some places below London bridge it is curious to observe with what different degrees of architectonic skill providence has endowed birds of the same genus and so nearly corresponded in their general mode of life for while the swallow and the house martin discover the greatest address in raising and securely fixing crusts or shells of loam as cunabula for their young the bank martin terribrates a round and regular hole in the sand or earth which is serpentine, horizontal and about two feet deep at the inner end of this burrow does this bird deposit in a good degree of safety a rude nest consisting of fine grasses and feathers, usually goose feathers very inartificially laid together Perseverance will accomplish anything though at first one would be disinclined to believe that this weak bird with her soft and tender bill and claws should ever be able to bore the stubborn sand bank without entirely disabling herself yet with these feeble instruments have I seen a pair of them make great dispatch and could remark how much they had scooped today by the fresh sand which ran down the bank and was of a different colour from that which lay loose and bleached in the sun in what space of time these little artists are able to mine and finish these cavities I have never been able to discover for reasons given above but it would be a matter worthy of observation where it falls in the way of any naturalist to make his remarks this I have often taken notice of that several holes of different depths are left unfinished at the end of summer to imagine that these beginnings were intentionally made in order to be in the greater forwardness for next spring is allowing perhaps too much foresight and rarum prudentia to a simple bird may not the cause of these latterbray being left unfinished arise from their meeting in those places with strata too harsh hard and solid for their purpose which they relinquish and go to a fresh spot that works more freely or may they not in other places fall in with the soil as much too loose and mouldering liable to flounder and threatening to overwhelm them and their labours one thing is remarkable that after some years the old holes are forsaken and new ones bored perhaps because the old habitations grow foul and fetid from long use or because they may so abound with fleas as to become untenable this species of swallow more ever is strangely annoyed with fleas and we have seen fleas, bed fleas poolex irritans swarming at the mouths of these holes like bees upon the stools of their hives the following circumstance should by no means be omitted that these birds do not make use of their caverns by way of hibernacular as might be expected since banks so perforated have been dug out with care in the winter when nothing was found but empty nests the sand mutt in arrives much about the same time with the swallow and lays as she does from four to six white eggs but as the species is cryptogammy carrying on the business of nidification incubation and the support of its young in the dark it would not be so easy to ascertain the time of breeding where it's not for the coming forth of the broods which appear much about the time or rather somewhat earlier than those of the swallow the nestlings are supported in common like those of their congeners with gnats and other small insects dragonflies almost as long as themselves in the last week in June we have seen a row of these sitting on a rail near a great pool as perches and so young and helpless as easily to be taken by hand but whether the dams ever feed them on the wing as swallows and house martins do we have never yet been able to determine nor do we know whether they pursue and attack birds of prey when they happen to breed near hedges and enclosures they are dispossessed of their breeding holes which is on the same account of fellow adversary to house martins these heron deans are no songsters but rather mute making only a little harsh noise when a person approaches their nests they seem not to be of a sociable turn never with us congregating with their congeners in the autumn undoubtedly they breed a second time like the house martin and swallow and withdraw about Mikkelmus though in some particular districts they may happen to abound in the south of England at least is this much the rarest species for there are few towns or large villages but what abound with house martins few churches, towers or steeples but what are haunted by some swifts scares a hamlet or single cottage chimney that has not its swallow while the bank martins scattered here and there live a sequestered life among some abrupt sandhills and in the banks of some few rivers these birds have a peculiar manner of flying, flitting about with odd jerks and vacillations not unlike the motions of a butterfly doubtless the flight of all heron deans is influenced by and adapted to the peculiar sort of insects which furnish their food hence it would be worth inquiry to examine what particular group of insects affords the principal food of each respective species of swallow notwithstanding what has been advanced above some few sand martins I see haunt the skirts of London frequenting the dirty pools in St. George's Fields and about White's Chapel the question is where these build since there are no banks or bold shores in that neighbourhood perhaps they nestle in the scaffold holes of some old or new deserted building they dip and wash as they fly sometimes like the house martin and swallow sand martins differ from their congeners in the diminutiveness of their size and in their colour which is what is usually called a mouse colour near Valencia in Spain they are taken, says Willoughby and sold in the markets for the table and are called by the country people probably from their desultory jerking manner of flight Papillon de Montagne End of Section 9 of Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne