I saw young teals taken alive in the ponds of Wolmerforest in the
beginning of July last, along with flappers, or young wild-ducks.
Speaking of the swift, chat page says 'its drink the dew'; whereas it
should be 'it drinks on the wing'; for all the swallow kind sip their
water as they sweep over the face of pools or rivers: like Virgil's
bees, they drink flying, 'flumina summa libant.' In this method of
drinking perhaps this genus may be peculiar.
Of the sedge-bird be pleased to say it sings most part of the night;
its notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and imitative of several
birds; as the sparrow, swallow, skylark. When it happens to be
silent in the night, by throwing a stone or clod into the bushes
where it sits you immediately set it a-singing; or in other words,
though it slumbers sometimes, yet as soon as it is awakened it
reassumes its song.
Letter XL
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, Sept. 2, 1774.
Dear Sir,
Before your letter arrived, and of my own accord, I had been
remarking and comparing the tails of the male and female swallow,
and this ere any young broods appeared; so that there was no
danger of confounding the dams with their pulli: and besides, as
they were then always in pairs, and busied in the employ of
nidification, there could be no room for mistaking the sexes, nor
the individuals of different chimnies the one for the other.
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