140 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
| OM SN ia Hi 268 RP Ws, 2 
TO THE SAME. 
FYFIELD, near ANDOVER, Fed. 12th, 1772. 
DEAR SIR,— You are, I know, no great friend to migration; and 
the well-attested accounts from various parts of the kingdom seem 
to justify you in your suspicions, that at least many of the swallow 
kind do not leave us in the winter, but lay themselves up like 
insects and bats, in a torpid state, and slumber away the more un- 
comfortable months till the return of the sun and fine weather 
awakens them. 
But then we must not, I think, deny migration in general ; be- 
cause migration certainly does subsist in some places, as my 
brother in Andalusia has fully informed me. Of the motions of 
these birds he has ocular demonstration, for many weeks together, 
both spring and fall ; during which periods myriads of the swallow 
kind traverse the Straits from north to south, and from south to 
north, according to the season And these vast migrations consist 
not only of hirundines but of bee-birds, hoopoes, Ovo fendolos, or 
golden thrushes, &c. &c., and also of many of our soft-billed 
summer ‘birds of passage; and moreover of birds which never 
leave us, such as all the various sorts of hawks and kites. Old 
Belon, two hundred years ago, gives a curious account of the 
incredible armies of hawks and kites which he saw in the spring- 
time traversing the Thracian Bosphorus from Asia to Europe, 
Besides the above-mentioned, he remarks that the procession is 
swelled by whole troops of eagles and vultures. 
Now it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa should retreat 
before the sun as it advances, and retire to milder regions, and 
especially birds of prey, whose blood being heated with hot animal 
food, are more impatient of a sultry climate; but then I cannot 
help wondering why kites and hawks, and such hardy birds as are 
known to defy all the severity of England, and even of Sweden 
and all north Europe, should want to migrate from the south of 
Europe, and be dissatisfied with the winters of Andalusia. 
It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid on the 
