NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 33 



Sunbury, which is one of those pleasant villages lying on the 

 Thames, near Hampton Court. In the autumn, I could not 

 help being much amused with* those myriads of the swallow 

 kind which assemble in those parts. But what struck me most 

 was, that, from the time they began to congregate, forsaking 

 the chimneys and houses, they roosted every night in the osier- 

 beds of the aits of that river. 2 Now this resorting towards that 

 element, at that season of the year, seems to give some coun- 

 tenance to the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their re- 

 tiring under water. A Swedish naturalist is so much persuaded 

 of that fact, that he talks, in his calendar of Flora, as familiarly 

 of the swallow's going under water in the beginning of Sep- 

 tember, as he would of his poultry going to roost a little before 

 sunset. 



An observing gentleman in London writes me word that he 

 saw a house-martin, on the twenty-third of last October, flying 

 in and out of its nest in the Borough. And I myself, on the 

 twenty-ninth of last October (as I was travelling through Ox- 

 ford), saw four or five swallows hovering round and settling 

 on the roof of the county hospital. 



Now is it likely that these poor little birds (which perhaps 

 had not been hatched but a few weeks) should, at that late 

 season of the year, and from so midland a county, attempt a 

 voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost as far as the equator ? 3 



I acquiesce entirely in your opinion that, though most of 

 the swallow kind may migrate, yet that some do stay behind 

 and hide with us during the winter. 



As to the short-winged, soft-billed birds, which come troop- 

 ing in such numbers in the spring, I am at a loss even what 

 to suspect about them. I watched them narrowly this year, and 

 saw them abound till about Michaelmas, when they appeared 

 no longer. Subsist they cannot openly among us, and yet 

 elude the eyes of the inquisitive : and, as to their hiding, no 

 man pretends to have found any of them in a torpid state in 

 the winter. But with regard to their migration, what difficulties 

 attend that supposition ! that such feeble, bad fliers (who the 

 summer long never flit but from hedge to hedge) should be able 

 to traverse vast seas and continents in order to enjoy milder 

 seasons amidst the regions of Africa ! 

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