142 REV. W. SERLE ON 
Newhaven near the mouth of the Lewes River, in pursuit of 
natural knowledge, we were surprised to see three house- 
swallows gliding very swiftly by us. That morning was rather 
chilly, with the wind at N.W., but the tenor of the weather for 
some time before had been delicate, and the noons remark- 
ably warm. From this incident, and from repeated accounts. 
I meet with, I am more and more induced to believe that 
many of the swallow kind do not depart from this island, 
but lay themselves up in holes and caverns.” Besides, 
there was the belief that swallows at the approach 
of winter descended in a body to the bottom of lakes, 
where they remained till the following spring. In all 
falsehood there is an element of truth, otherwise the false- 
hood would not persist. I have no doubt boys took dead 
birds from the rifts in the chalk cliffs of Sussex, thought they 
were swallows, and the next person declared they were 
swallows, and it only required the next person to declare 
that they were sleeping. Then, remember that in those 
days England was largely under marsh, and in winter-time 
had wide expanses of shallow lakes ; remember that swallows 
in September begin to form large flocks and are very fond of 
roosting together for the night in beds of reeds at the sides 
of lakes; there is only wanted now a man to swear that he 
saw these swallows descend, not into the reeds, but into the 
lake itself; add to all this the sudden disappearance of the 
swallow, and you account for the Hibernation Theory. If 
the truth-loving Gilbert, one of Nature’s best investigators, had 
difficulties in throwing away such a theory, especially regarding 
swallows, it is certain he did not believe it altogether. He 
says: “But then we must not, I think, deny migration in 
general; because migration certainly does subsist in some 
places, as my brother in Andalusia has fully informed me,” 
etc. 
Nobody now believes in the hibernation of birds, and if 
Gilbert White believed partly in it, he, by that last quotation, 
put scientific men on to the right road to explode the idea. 
He compared notes with his brother in Spain, who was in 
the best of regions to see the enormous flocks of British 
migrants that streamed during the early spring months over 
from the continent of Africa. Travel and investigation 
