44 love's meinie. 



liaz}^," (I quote Yarrell) " tliey will alight on fisliiiig- 

 boats a league or two from land, so tired that when any 

 one tries to catch them, they can scarcely fly from one 

 end of the boat to the other." 



I have no time to read to von the interestins: evidence 

 on this point given by Yarrell, but only that of the 

 brother of White of Selboi'ne, at Gibraltar, " My brother 

 lias always found," he himself writes, " that some of his 

 birds, and particularly the swallow kind, are very sparing 

 of their pains in crossing the Mediterranean ; for when 

 ari'ived at Gibraltar, they do not ^set forth their airy 

 ca7'a\au, high over seas,' but scout and huriy along in 

 little detached parties of six or seven in a company ; and 

 sweeping low, just over the surface of the land and water, 

 direct their course to the ojDposite continent at the nar- 

 rowest passage they can find," 



50. You will observe, however, that it remains an open 

 question whether this fear of the sea may not be, in the 

 swallow, like ours of the desert. The commissariat de- 

 partment is a serious one foi* birds that eat a thousand flies 

 a day when just out of the egg ; and it is possible that the 

 w^eariness of swallows at sea may depend much more on 

 fasting than flying. Captain (or Admiral?) Sir Charles 

 Wager says that '' one spring-time, as he came into sound- 

 ings in the English Chaimel, a great flock of swallows 

 came and settled on all his rigging; every rope was 

 covered ; they hung on one another like a swarm of bees ; 

 even the decks were filled with them. They seemed 



