74 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



lived a great while, and seemed to enjoy themselves very well, 

 but never bred. Whether this circumstance will prove any thing 

 either way I shall not pretend to say.* 



I return you thanks for your account of Cressi-hall ; but re- 

 collect, not without regret, that in June 1746 I was visiting for 

 a week together at Spalding, without ever being told that such 

 a curiosity 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 or 

 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 chat- 

 ters sitting as well as flying ; and therefore the noise was volun- 

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

 the air against the hollow of its mouth and throat. 



If ever I saw any thing like actual migration, it was last 

 Michaelmas-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 (Jiirundines 

 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 who 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 rea- 

 son to believe, leave this island. Swallows seem to lay them- 

 selves 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 respectable gentleman assured me that, as he was walking 

 with some friends under Merton-wall on a remarkably hot noon, 

 either in the last week in December or the first week in January, 



* They are the same. ED. 



