SELBORNE, _Sept._ 13_th_, 1774.
Dear Sir,--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
4th, the swift on April 24th, the bank-martin on April 12th, and the
house-martin not till April 30th. At South Zele, Devonshire, swallows
did not arrive till April 25th, swifts in plenty on May 1st, and house-
martins not till the middle of May. At Blackburn, in Lancashire, swifts
were seen April 28th, swallows April 29th, house-martins May 1st. Do
these different dates, in such distant districts, prove anything for or
against migration?
A farmer near Weyhill fallows his land with two teams of asses, one of
which works till noon, and the other in the afternoon. When 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.
Linnaeus says that hawks "_paciscuntur inducia scum 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 llwyn," 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 _pro aris et focis_; but numbers at last prevailed, they tore
the nest to pieces, and swallowed the young alive.
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.
Frequent returns of deafness incommode me sadly, and half disqualify me
for a naturalist; for, when those fits are upon me, I lose all the
pleasing notices and little intimations arising from rural sounds; and
May is to me as silent and mute with respect to the notes of birds, etc.,
as August. My eyesight is, thank God, quick and good; but with respect
to the other sense, I am, at times, disabled:
"And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out."