, over-run with _hippoboscoe_, 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 July 5th, 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
natural [Greek text] 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 a 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 [Greek text], or state of perfection, while
the progressive growth of men and large quadrupeds is slow and tedious!

I am, etc.

LETTER XXII.

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 Lancas