96 The Natural History of Selborne 



was just at hand. Pray send me word in your next what sort of 

 tree it is that contains such a quantity of herons' nests ; and 

 whether the heronry consists of a whole grove of wood, or only of a 

 few trees. 



It gave me satisfaction to find we accorded so well about the 

 caprimulgus ; all I contended for was to prove that it often chatters 

 sitting as well as flying ; and therefore the noise was voluntary, 

 and from organic impulse, and not from the resistance of the air 

 against the hollow of its mouth and throat. 1 



If ever I saw anything like actual migration, it was last Michael- 

 mas Day. I was travelling, and out early in the morning ; at first 

 there was a vast fog ; but, by the time that I was got seven or eight 

 miles from home towards the coast, the sun broke out into a delicate 

 warm day. We were then on a large heath or common, and I 

 could discern, as the mist began to break away, great numbers of 

 swallows (hirundines rustic*} clustering on the stunted shrubs and 

 bushes, as if they had roosted there all night. As soon as the 

 air became clear and pleasant they all were on the wing at once ; 

 and, by a placid and easy flight, proceeded on southward towards 

 the sea ; after this I did not see any more flocks, only now and 'then 

 a straggler. 



I cannot agree with those persons that assert that the swallow 

 kind disappear some and some, gradually, as they come, for the 

 bulk of them seem to withdraw at once ; only some stragglers stay 

 behind a long while, and do never, there is the greatest reason to 

 believe, leave this island. 2 Swallows seem to lay themselves up, and 

 to come forth in a warm day, as bats do continually of a warm 

 evening, after they have disappeared for weeks. For -a very respect- 

 able gentleman assured me that, as he was walking with some friends 

 under Merton Wall 3 on a remarkably hot noon, either in the last 

 week in December or the first week in January, he espied three or 



1 The night-jar usually churrs when seated (lengthwise) on a bough ; the 

 trilled noise is undoubtedly voluntary, and is a love-call to its mate. ED. a No 

 swallows winter in England, though a few stragglers may be seen on warm days 

 in late autumn or early spring. ED. 3 The wall between Merton College, 

 Oxford, and Christ Church Meadows, familiar both to White and his corre- 

 spondent. ED. 



