I 4 o NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER IX. 



TO THE SAME. 



FYFIELD, near ANDOVER, Pel. ^'ith, 1772. 



DEAR SIR, You are, I know, no great friend to migration ; and 

 the well-attested accounts from various parts of the kingdom seem 

 to justify you in your suspicions, that at least many of the swallow 

 kind do not leave us in the winter, but lay themselves up like 

 insects and bats, in a torpid state, and slumber away the more un- 

 comfortable months till the return of the sun and fine weather 

 awakens them. 



But then we must not, I think, deny migration in general ; be- 

 cause migration certainly does subsist in some places, as my 

 brother in Andalusia has fully informed me. Of the motions of 

 these birds he has ocular demonstration, for many weeks together, 

 both spring and fall ; during which periods myriads of the swallow 

 kind traverse the Straits from north to south, and from south to 

 north, according to the season And these vast migrations consist 

 not only of hirundines but of bee-birds, hoopoes, Oro pendolos, or 

 golden thrushes, &c. &c., and also of many of our soft-billed 

 summer 'birds of passage ; and moreover of birds which never 

 leave us, such as all the various sorts of hawks and kites. Old 

 Belon, two hundred years ago, gives a curious account of the 

 incredible armies of hawks and kites which he saw in the spring- 

 time traversing the Thracian Bosphorus from Asia to Europe. 

 Besides the above-mentioned, he remarks that the procession is 

 swelled by whole troops of eagles and vultures. 



Now it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa should retreat 

 before the sun as it advances, and retire to milder regions, and 

 especially birds of prey, whose blood being heated with hot animal 

 food, are more impatient of a sultry climate ; but then I cannot 

 help wondering why kites and hawks, and such hardy birds as are 

 known to defy all the severity of England, and even of Sweden 

 and all north Europe, should want to migrate from the south of 

 Europe, and be dissatisfied with the winters of Andalusia. 



It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid on the 



