The Natural History of Selborne

Four swallows were seen skimming about in a lane below Newton.  This circumstance seems much in favor of hiding, since the hirundines seemed to be with drawn for some weeks.  It looks as if the soft weather had called them out of their retirement.  My Brother’s turkies avail themselves much of the beech-mast which they find in his grove: they also delight in acorns, & wallnuts, & hasel-nuts: no wonder therefore that they subsist wild in the woods of America, where they are supposed to be indigenous.  They swallow hasel-nuts whole.