MIGRATION. 141 



moon, generally in the direction of Austria. Then 

 it returns back, after mating, generally about the 

 March full-moon." For the whole passage, (which 

 I have abridged) see Elenchus, &c. p. 351. This 

 seems to be a full proof of the emigration of wood- 

 cocks ; though little is proved concerning the place 

 of their breeding.* 



P.S. There fell in the county of Rutland, in 

 three weeks of this present very wet weather, seven 

 inches and a half of rain, which is more than has 

 fallen in any three weeks for these thirty years past, 

 in that part of the world. A mean quantity in that 

 county for one year is twenty inches and a half. 



LETTER XLII. 



TO THE SAME. 



FYFIELD, near ANDOVER, Feb. 12, 1771- 

 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 uncomfortable months, till the return of the 

 sun and fine weather awakens them. 



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. Of the motions of these birds he has 



* Woodcocks arrive in Silesia about the latter end of April, 

 or beginning of May, and leave it again in October. W. J. 



