56 The Natural History of Selbortie 



Sunbury, which is one of those pleasant villages lying on 

 the Thames, near Hampton Court. Jn 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 [eyots] of that river. Now this 

 resorting towards that element, at that season of the year, 

 seems to give some countenance to the northern opinion 

 (strange as it is) of their retiring 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 September, as he would of 

 his poultry going to roost a little before sunset. 



An observing gentleman in London writes me word that he 

 saw an 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 

 Oxford), 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 ? * 



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. 1 



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 



* See Adanson's " Voyage to Senegal." 



1 1'his opinion is now known to be quite erroneous. ED. 



