The Natural History of Selborne

Hop-picking goes on without the least interruption. Stone-curlews cry late in the evenings.  The congregating flocks of hirundines on the church & tower are very beautiful, & amusing!  When they fly-off altogether from the Roof, on any alarm, they quite swarm in the air.  But they soon settle in heaps, & preening their feathers, & lifting up their wings to admit the sun, seem highly to enjoy the warm situation.  Thus they spend the heat of the day, preparing for their emigration, &, as it were consulting when & where they are to go.  The flight about the church seems to consist chiefly of house-martins, about 400 in number: but there are other places of rendezvous about the village frequented at the same time.  The swallows seem to delight more in holding their assemblies on trees. 

“When Autumn scatters his departing gleams,/
Warn’d of appraching winter gathered play/
The swallow people; & toss’d wide around/
O’er the calm sky in convulsion swift,/
The feather’d eddy floats: rejoicing once/
Ere to their wintry slumbers they retire,/
In clusters clung beneath the mouldring bank,/
And where, unpierced by frost, the cavern sweats./
Or rather to warmer climes convey’d,/
With other kindred birds of season, there/
They twitter chearful, till the vernal months/
Invite them welcome back:– for thronging now/
Innumberable wings are in commotion all.”