In London a party of fwifts frequents the ’Tcrwer, playing and feeding
over the river juft below the bridge : others haunt fome of the
churches of the Borough next the fields ï but do not venture, like
the houfe-martin, into the clofe crowded part of the town.
The Swedes have bellowed a very pertinent name on this fwallow,
calling it ring fwala, from the perpetual rings or circles that it takes
round the fcene of it’s nidification.
Swifts feed on coleoptera, or finall beetles with hard cafes over
their wings, as well as on the fofter inlefts ; but k does not appear
how they can procure gravel to grind their food, as fwallows do,
fince they never fettle on the ground. Young ones, over-run with:
hippobofca, are fometimes found, under their nefts, fallen to the
ground ; the number of vermin rendering their abode infupportable
any longer. They frequent in this village lèverai abjeft cottages j
yet a fucceffion ftill haunts the fame unlikely roofs : a good proof
this that the fame birds return to the fame fpots. As they mull
ftoop very low to get up under thefe humble eaves, cats lie in wait,
and fometimes catch them on the wing.
On the fifth of July, 1775, 1 again untiled part of a roof over the
neft of a fwift. The dam fat in the neft ; but fo ftrongly was
the aflfefted by natural croçyn for her brood, which Ihe fuppofed
to be in danger, that, regardlefs of her own fafety, Ihe would not
ftir, but lay fullenly by them, permitting herfelf to be taken in
hand. The fquab young we brought down and placed on the
grafs-plot, where they tumbled about, and were as helplefs as
a new-born child. While we contemplated their naked bodies,
their unwieldy difproportioned abdomina, and their heads, too
heavy for their necks to fupport, we could not but wonder when
we reflefted that thefe Ihiftlefs beings in a little, more than a
fortnight would be able to dalh through the air almoft with the
inconceivable
inconceivable fwiftnefs of a meteor; and perhaps, in their emigration,
mull traverfe vail continents and oceans as dillant as the
equator. So foon does Nature advance fmall birds to their liAixi«,
or Hate o f perfeftion; while the progreflive growth of men and
darge quadrupeds is flow and tedious !
I am, &c.
L E T T E R XXH.
TO THE S A M E .
D E A R S IR , S elborne, Sept. 13, 177+.
B y means of a ftraight cottage-chimney I had an opportunity
this fumroer of remarking, at my leifure, how fwallows afcend
and defcend through the lhaft: but my pleafure, in contemplating
the addrefs with which this feat was performed to a confiderable
depth in the chimney, was fomewhat interrupted by apprehenlions
left my eyes might undergo the fame fate with thofe of Tobit.1
Perhaps it may be fome amufement to you to hear at what
times the different fpecies of hirundines arrived this fpring in
three very dillant counties of this kingdom. With us ihe
1 Tobit a. io«
B b i fwallow