52 love's meinie. 



48. Michelet gives the rate of his flight (at 

 full speed, of course,) as eighty leagues an 

 hour. I find no more sound authority ; but 

 do not doubt his approximate accuracy ; * still 

 how curious and how provoking it is that 

 neither White of Selborne, Bewick, Yarrell, 

 nor Gould, says a word about this, one should 

 have thought the most interesting, power of 

 the bird.j- 



Taking Michelet's estimate — eighty French 

 leagues, roughly two hundred and fifty miles, 

 an hour — we have a thousand miles in four 

 hours. That is to say, leaving Devonshire 

 after an early breakfast, he could be in Africa 

 to lunch. 



49. He could, I say, if his flight were 

 constant; but though there is much incon- 

 sistency in the accounts, the sum of testimony 

 seems definite that the swallow is among the 



* I wrote this some time ago, and the endeavours I have 

 since made to verify statements on points of natural history 

 which I had taken on trust have given me reason to doubt 

 everybody's accuracy. The ordinary flight of the swallow 

 does not, assuredly, even in the dashes, reach anything like 

 this speed. 



t Incidentally suggestive sentences occur in the history 

 of Selborne, but its author never comes to the point, in 

 this case. 



