12 STUDIES IN BIRD-MIGRATION 



munication made to the Royal Society in 1772, 

 and entitled, "An Essay on the Periodical Appear- 

 ing and Disappearing of certain birds at Different 

 Times of the Year."^ Harrington's views, and his 

 persistent advocacy of them, do not call for special 

 notice, since they are well known indirectly through 

 the celebrated correspondence which passed between 

 him and Gilbert White. All ornithologists know 

 and regret the baneful influence they exercised over 

 that most excellent naturalist, whose classical work, 

 Whites Selborne, has done more than any other 

 book in this country to foster the study of bird- 

 miorration. That Gilbert White at first held orthodox 



o 



views on the subject of the migration of Swallows, etc., 

 is made manifest by his letter of 4th August, 1767, 

 addressed to Thomas Pennant ; but later he seems 

 to have fallen almost entirely under the influence of 

 Barrington, and to have become a believer in the latter's 

 absurd views regarding the winter torpidity of the 

 Swallow-kind, as did most other naturalists of that 

 period. Indeed, the only writer of any distinction in 

 the eighteenth century who adhered to sound common- 

 sense views on the subject was George Edwards,^ 

 whose remarks are, to this day, well worthy of perusal. 

 Speaking of the immersion theory, "it is enough," 

 writes this author, "to raise one's indignation, to see 

 so many vouchers from so many assertors of this 

 foolish and erroneous conjecture, which is not only 

 repugnant to reason, but to all the known laws of 

 nature." 



' Phil. Trans. ^ Ixii., pp. 265-326. 



2 Natural History of Birds and Gleanings of Natural History., published 

 between 1743 and 1760. 



