and wonderful, since that time is often the sweetest season in the year. But, what is more extraordinary, they begin to retire still earlier in the most southerly parts of Andalusia, where they can be no ways influenced by any defect of heat; or, as one might suppose, defect of food. Are they regulated in their motions with us by a failure of food, or by a propensity to moulting, or by a disposition to rest after so rapid a life, or by what? This is one of those incidents in natural history that not only baffles our searches, but almost eludes our guesses!

These hirundines never perch on trees or roofs, and so never congregate with their congeners. They are fearless while haunting their nesting-places, and are not to be scared by a gun; and are often beaten down with poles and cudgels as they stoop to go under the eaves. Swifts are much infested with those pests to the genus called hippobosco (Anaperæ hirundinis, Leach), and often wriggle and scratch themselves, in their flight, to get rid of that clinging annoyance.

Swifts are no songsters, and have only one harsh screaming note; yet there are ears to which it is not displeasing, from an agreeable association of ideas, since that note never occurs but in the most lovely summer weather.

They never settle on the ground but through accident; and when down can hardly rise, on account of the shortness of their legs and the length of their wings: neither can they walk, but only crawl; but they have a strong grasp with their feet, by which they cling to walls. Their bodies being flat, they can enter a very narrow crevice; and when they cannot pass on their bellies they will turn up edgewise.

The particular formation of the foot discriminates the swift from all the British hirundines; and indeed from all other known birds, the Hirundo melba, or great white-bellied swift of Gibraltar, excepted; for it is so disposed as to carry "omnes quatuor digitos anticos "-"all its four toes forward;" besides, the least toe, which should be the back one, consists of one bone only, and the other three of only two apiece: a construction most rare and peculiar, but nicely adapted to the purposes in which their feet are employed. This, and some peculiarities attending the nostrils and under mandible, have induced a discerning

naturalist to suppose that this species might constitute a genus by itself.

In London a party of swifts frequent the Tower, playing and feeding over the river just below the bridge: others haunt some of the churches of the Borough next the fields; but do not venture, like the house-martin, into the close, crowded part of the town.

The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent name on this swallow, calling it "ring swala," from the perpetual rings or circles that it takes round the scene of its nidification.

Swifts feed on coleoptera, or small beetles with hard cases over their wings, as well as on the softer insects; but it does not appear how they can procure gravel to grind their food, as swallows do, since they never settle on the ground. Young

SWIFT'S EGG.

ones, overrun with hippobosco, are sometimes found, under their nests, fallen to the ground; the number of vermin rendering their abode insupportable any longer. They frequent in this village several abject cottages; yet a succession still haunts the same unlikely roofs: a good proof this that the same birds return to the same spots. As they must stoop very low to get up under these humble eaves, cats lie in wait, and sometimes catch them on the wing..

On the 5th of July, 1775, I again untiled part of a roof over the nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest; but so strongly was she affected by her natural σTоpyń for her brood, which she supposed 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 helpless 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 little more than a fortnight would be able to dash through the air almost with 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 λkia, or state of perfection; while the progressive growth of men and large quadrupeds is slow and tedious !

SELBORNE, Sept. 28, 1774.

LETTER LXIII.

TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON.

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 contemplating the address with which this feat was performed to a considerable 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 swallow 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 till 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 anything for or against migration?

noon.

A farmer near Weyhill fallows his land with two teams of asses; one of which works till noon, and the other in the afterWhen these animals have done their work, they are penned all night, like sheep, on the fallow. In the winter they are confined and foddered in a yard, and make plenty of dung.

Linnæus says that hawks "make a truce with other birds as long as the cuckoo is heard: "." paciscuntur inducias cum avibus, quamdiu cuculus cuculat:" but it appears to me that, during that period, many little birds are taken and destroyed

by birds of prey, as may be seen by their feathers left in lanes and under hedges.

The missel-thrush is, while breeding, fierce and pugnacious, driving such birds as approach its nest with great fury to a distance. The Welsh call it "pen y llwynn," the head or master of the coppice. He suffers no magpie, jay, or blackbird to enter the garden where he haunts; and is, for the time, a good guard to the new-sown legumens. In general he is very successful in the defence of his family; but once I observed in my garden, that several magpies came determined to storm the nest of a missel-thrush: the dams defended their mansion with great vigour, and fought resolutely for "their faith and for their homes:" pro aris et focis; but numbers at last prevailed, they tore the nest to pieces, and swallowed the young alive.

[Thrushes during long droughts are of great service in hunting out shell-snails, which they pull in pieces for their young,

1

1 Of the truth of this I have been an eye-witness, having seen the common thrush feeding on the shell-snail.-MARKWICK.

and are thereby very serviceable in gardens. Missel-thrushes do not destroy the fruit in gardens like the other species of turdi, but feed on the berries of mistletoe, and in the spring on ivy-berries, which then begin to ripen. In the summer, when their young become fledged, they leave neighbourhoods, and retire to sheep-walks and wild commons. This species of thrush, though wild at other times, delights to build near houses, and in frequented walks and gardens.]

In the season of nidification the wildest birds are comparatively tame. Thus the ring-dove breeds in my fields, though they are continually frequented; and the missel-thrush, though

most shy and wild in the autumn and winter, builds in my garden close to a walk where people are passing all day long. Wall-fruit abounds with me this year; but my grapes, that used to be forward and good, are at present backward beyond all precedent and this is not the worst of the story; for the same ungenial weather, the same black cold solstice, has injured the more necessary fruits of the earth, and discoloured and blighted our wheat. The crop of hops promises to be very large.

1 In the very early part of this spring (1797) a bird of this species used to sit every morning on the top of some very high elms close by my windows, and delight me with its charming song, attracted thither, probably, by some ripe ivy-berries that grew near the place.

I have remarked something like the latter fact, for I remember many years ago, seeing a pair of these birds fly up repeatedly and attack some larger bird, which I suppose disturbed their nest in my orchard, uttering at the same time violent shrieks. Since writing the above, I have seen more than once a pair of these birds attack some magpies that had disturbed their nest, with great violence and loud shrieks.-MARKWICK.