Page:White - The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne.djvu/199

 Notwithstanding what has been advanced above, some few sand- martins, I see, haunt the skirts of London, frequenting the dirty pools in Saint George's-Fields, and about White-Chapel. The question is where these build, since there are no banks or bold shores in that neighbourhood: perhaps they nestle in the scaffold- holes of some old or new deserted building. They dip and wash as they fly sometimes, like the house-martin and swallow.

Sand-martins differ from their congeners in the diminutiveness of their size, and in their colour, which is what is usually called a mouse-colour. Near Valencia in Spain, they are taken, says Willughby, and sold in the markets for the table; and are called by the country people, probably from their desultory jerking manner of flight, Papilion de montagna.

Letter XXI To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Sept. 28, 1774.

Dear Sir,

As the swift or black-martin is the largest of the British hirundines, so is it undoubtedly the latest comer. For I remember but one instance of its appearing before the last week in April: and in some of our late frosty, harsh springs, it has not been seen till the beginning of May. This species usually arrives in pairs.