11. THE SWALLOW. 53 



most fatiguable of birds. " When the weather 

 is ha ^'3'," (I quote Yarrell) " they will alight on 

 fishing-L'Oats a league or two from land, so 

 lired that when any one tries to catch them, 

 they raji scarcely fly from one end of the boat 

 to the other." 



I have no time to read to you the interesting 

 evidence on this point given by Yarrell, but 

 only that of the brother of White of Selborne, 

 at Gibraltar. " My brother has alwaj's found," 

 he himself writes, " that some of his birds, and 

 particularly the swallow kind, are very sparing 

 of their pains in crossing the Mediterranean ; 

 for when arrived at Gibraltar, they do not ' set 

 forth their airy caravan, high over seas,' but 

 scout and hurry along in little detached parties 

 of six or seven in a company ; and sweeping 

 low, just over the surface of the land and water, 

 direct their course to the opposite continent at 

 the narrowest passage they can find." 



50. You will observe, however, that it 

 remains an open question whether this fear of 

 sea may not be, in the swallow, like ours of 

 the desert. The commissariat department is 

 a serious one for birds that eat a thousand flics 

 a day when just out of the egg; and it is 



