you are at liberty to lay it before them; and they win consider it, I
hope, as it was intended, as an humble attempt to promote a more minute
inquiry 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 to the rest of the British
hirundines.
Though I have now travelled the Sussex-downs upwards 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 eastward as far as
East-Bourn, is about sixty miles in length, and is called the South
Downs, properly speaking, only round Lewes. As you pass along you
command a noble view of the wild, or weald, 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 hips, and was so ravished with the prospect from
Plumpton-plain near Lewes, that he mentions those scopes 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.
* Mr. Courthope, of Danny.
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 smooch 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 drown 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 admeasurements of the hills that have been
taken round my house, I should suppose that these hills surmount the
wild at au average at about the rate of five hundred feet.
One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep: from the westward till
you get to the river Adur 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 Beeding-hill, all the
flocks at once become hornless, or, as they call them, poll-sheep; and
have moreover 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
Bramber and Beeding 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 ewes. The
black-faced poll-sheep have the shortest legs and the finest wool.
As I had hardly ever before travelled these downs at so late a season
of the year, 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, entre nous, the disappearing
of the latter is more marvellous than that of the former, and much more
unaccountable. The hirundines, if they please, are certainly capable of
migration; and yet no doubt are often found in a torpid state: but
redstarts, nightingales, white-throats, black-caps, etc., 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 and inquisitive, which from day to day discern the other small
birds that are known to abide our winters. But, notwithstanding all my
care, I saw nothing like a summer bird of passage: and, what is more
strange, not one wheat-ear, though they abound 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. The most 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
Brighthelmstone and Tunbridge; and appear at the tables of all the
gentry that entertain with any degree of elegance. About Michaelmas
they retire and are seen no more till March. Though these birds are,
when in season, in great plenty on the south downs round Lewes, yet at
East-Bourn, which is the eastern extremity of those downs, they abound
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 more than three or four at
a time: so that there must be a perpetual flitting and constant
progressive succession. It does not appear that any wheat-ears are
taken to the westward of Houghton-bridge, which stands on the river
Arun.
I did not fail to look particularly after my new migration of
ring-ousels; and to take notice whether they continued on the downs to
this season of the year; as I had formerly remarked them in the month
of October all the way from Chichester to Lewes wherever there were any
shrubs and covert: but not one bird of this sort came within my
observation. I only saw a few larks and whin-chats, some rooks, and
several kites and buzzards.
About Midsummer 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 under ground about the twentieth
of November, and came out again for one day on the thirtieth: 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 all the winter from this rookery, 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 daws, that act, as it were, as their harbingers.
I am, etc.
Letter XVIII
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Jan. 29, 1774.
Dear Sir,
The house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, is undoubtedly the first comer
of all the British hirundines; and appears in general on or about the
thirteenth 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
mill-ponds; 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
hybernaculum just at hand, than return for a week or two only to warmer
latitudes.
The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no means builds
altogether in chimneys, but often within barns and out-houses against
the rafters; and so she did in Virgil’s time:
… Ante
Garrula quam tignis nidos suspendat hirundo.
In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called ladu swala, 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 her 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 build down the shaft of an old well, through which
chalk had been formerly 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 down the chimney 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
as they float in the air.
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 are conducted to
the dead leafless bough of some tree, where, sitting in a row, they are
attended with great assiduity, and may then be called perchers. 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 flies; and when a mouthful is collected, at a certain
signal given, the dam and the nestling advance, rising towards each
other, and meeting 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 regard to the wonders of nature that has not
often remarked this feat.
The dam betakes herself immediately to the business of a 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. This hirundo brings out
her second brood towards the middle and end of August.
All the summer long is the swallow a 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 pasture-fields,
and mown meadows where cattle graze, are her 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 excubitor 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 he calls all
the swallows and martins about him; who pursue in a body, and buffet
and strike their enemy till 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; but the swallow alone, in general, washes 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-tops: is also a bold flyer, ranging to distant downs and
commons even in windy weather, which the other species seem much to
dislike; nay, even frequenting exposed sea-port towns, and making
little excursions over the salt water. Horsemen on wide downs 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.
This species feeds much on little coleoptera, 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; though 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 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 forkedness 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 στοργὴ of
the swallow, I shall add, for your farther 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
out-house, 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
Britain. 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.*
* Sir Ashton Lever’s Museum.
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 XIX
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Feb. 14, 1774.
Dear Sir,
I received your favour of the eighth, 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
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 garrula 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 against eaves and cornices.
As to the simile, too much stress must not be laid on it: yet the
epithet nigra speaks plainly in favour 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 and quick turns which Juturna gave to her
brother’s chariot, so as to elude the eager pursuit of the enraged
Aeneas. The verb sonat also seems to imply a bird that is somewhat
loquacious.*
* Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis ædes
Pervolat, et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo,
Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus escas:
Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circum
Stagna sonat …
We have had a very wet autumn and winter, so as to raise the springs to
a pitch beyond any thing since 1764; which was a remarkable year for
floods and high waters. The land-springs, which we call lavants, break
out much on the downs of Sussex, Hampshire, and Wiltshire. The country
people say when the lavants rise corn will always be dear; meaning that
when the earth is so glutted with water as to send forth springs on the
downs and uplands, that the corn-vales must be drowned; and so it has
proved for these ten or eleven years past. For 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 XX
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Feb. 26, 1774.
Dear Sir,
The sand-martin, or bank-martin, is by much the least of any of the
British hirundines; and, as far as we have ever seen, the smallest
known hirundo; though Brisson asserts that there is one much smaller,
and that is the hirundo esculenta.
But it is much to be regretted that it is scarce possible for any
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 fera natura, 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 are in this parish, in the sand-pits and banks of the lakes of
Wolmer-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
Bishop’s Waltham, in this county, where many sand-martins nestle and
breed in the scaffold-holes of the back-wall of William of Wykeham’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 that they swarm 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
correspondent 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 terebrates 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,
her 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 that day 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 rerum prudentia to a
simple bird. May not the cause of these latebrae 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 a 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 moreover is strangely
annoyed with fleas: and we have seen fleas, bed-fleas (pulex 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 hybernacula, as might
be expected; since banks so perforated have been dug out with care in
the winter, when nothing was found but empty nests.