Some swifts staid late, till the twenty-second or August --a rare
instance! for they usually withdraw within the first week.*
(*See Letter LIII to Mr. Barrington.)
On September the twenty-fourth three or four ring-ousels appeared
in my fields for the first time this season: how punctual are these
visitors in their autumns and spring migrations!
Letter XXXVIII
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, March 15, 1773.
Dear Sir,
By my journal for last autumn it appears that the house-martins
bred very late, and staid very late in these parts; for, on the first of
October, I saw young martins in their nests nearly fledged; and
again, on the twenty-first of October, we had at the next house a
nest full of young martins just ready to fly; and the old ones were
hawking for insects with great alertness. The next morning the
brood forsook their nest, and were flying round the village. From
this day I never saw one of the swallow kind till November the
third; when twenty, or perhaps thirty, house-martins were playing
all day long by the side of the hanging wood, and over my fields.
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