Now this is exactly the case with
the swifts; for they take their food in a more exalted region than the
other species, and are very seldom seen hawking for flies near the
ground, or over the surface of the water. From hence I would
conclude that these hirundines, and the larger bats, are supported
by some sorts of high-flying gnats, scarabs, or phalaenae, that are
of short continuance; and that the short stay of these strangers is
regulated by the defect of their food.
(* The little bat appears almost every month in the year; but I have
never seen the large ones till the end of April, nor after July. They
are most common in June, but never in any plenty; are a rare
species with us.)
By my journal it appears that curlews clamoured on to October the
thirty-first; since which I have not seen or heard any. Swallows
were observed on to November the third.
Letter XXVII
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, Feb. 22, 1770.
Dear Sir,
Hedge-hogs abound in my gardens and fields. The manner in which
they eat their roots of the plantain in my grass-walks is very
curious: with their upper mandible, which is much longer than their
lower, they bore under the plant, and so eat the root off upwards,
leaving the tuft of leaves untouched.
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